Armenia

The Republic of Armenia is situated in the south-western part of Asia at the junction with south-eastern part of Europe. This landlocked country occupies the North-Eastern part of Armenian plateau – between Caucasus and Nearest Asia (the inter-river territory between middle flows of Kur and Araks rivers). It borders in the North and East with Georgia and Azerbaijan, and in the West and South with Turkey and Iran.

Road, rail and air transports are main transport modes in the Republic of Armenia. The length of the railway network is 826.6 km (eventually, 725.6 km are in operation) and that of the motor roads 7,749 km, of which 1,730 km are inter-state roads.

Among key problems identified in the field of transport are:

- for road transport: lack of roads in good technical conditions, sub-standard road parameters, which makes them unsuitable for cargo transportation, needed modernization of heavy commercial truck fleet;

- for rail transport: there is only one key railway line connection, which is now under operation even though there is an urgent need to rehabilitate and reconstruct some of its sections and structures and to modernize the rolling stock.

Armenia has also been an active member of TRACECA since the Brussels Conference in May 1993 which gave birth to the TRACECA programme.

The governmental body in charge of regulation and defining the axes of development and the national transport policy is the Ministry of Transport and Communication of the Republic of Armenia (MoTC). It is composed of the transport department, which comprises the transport policy and the technical policy sections, the railways department and the road construction department.

The policy of Armenia in the field of transport has been deeply redefined since the independence of the country in 1991. A first Development Strategy, prepared with the help of the World Bank, was adopted in 1997 and aimed in priority at liberalizing the transport sector and restructuring the institutional framework.

Today, the national transport policy of Armenia is defined in two main documents:  

- National Road Safety Strategy for Armenia approved as well in 2009.

To respond to the existing challenges for MOS and ILC promotion, two TRACECA projects made a pre-screening for potential pilot projects. The pre-screening was based on the multi criteria analysis of proposed pilot, which helped to narrow down the pilot projects list.

As a result of the first phase of MOS I and ILC implementation, for the above mentionned pilot project, a feasibility study was elaborated.

The LOGMOS team carried out a comprehensive country analysis covering the national transport policy, strategic challenges, legal environment and investments in the transport and logistics sector. Findings of this study were reflected in a Country Profile based on the following structure:

Introduction

National Transport Policy

Legal Environment in the field of Transport

National Policy and Legislation in Trade and Transit

Investments in Transport and Logistics Sector

Strategic Challenges

Pilot Projects Selected for MoS I and ILC Projects

Full text of the Country Profile and Project Fact Sheets are available under the above links.