Armenian Trade with Azerbaijan: $20M Imports, $960 Exports, a One-Sided Illusion
Armenia imports roughly 18 to 20 million dollars of petroleum from Azerbaijan. But Armenia's exports? Less than a thousand dollars. And it's not even real Azerbaijani fuel. It's Russian energy white-labeled through Baku.
One of the most telling statistics about the Armenia-Azerbaijan ‘peace process’ lies in the trade data. Armenia has imported roughly 18 to 20 million dollars in petroleum products from Azerbaijan. By contrast, Armenia’s exports to Azerbaijan total less than one thousand dollars; Asbed specifies the figure as $960. This 20,000-to-1 imbalance is not merely economic. It is a symbol of the one-directional nature of the current settlement.
Hovik’s deeper analysis reveals an even more damning reality. Azerbaijan cannot produce the fuel it claims to export to Armenia. Neither can it produce the grain that Armenia has imported from Azerbaijan. The petroleum and grain flowing from Baku to Yerevan are in fact Russian commodities, white-labeled through Azerbaijani intermediaries. Armenia is not really trading with Azerbaijan; it is purchasing Russian energy and grain routed through Baku, deepening its economic dependence on its enemy while Azerbaijan takes the credit for cooperation.
This dynamic exemplifies the broader framework of the ‘peace’ process. Hovik notes that the narrative can be spun in many ways: grant-funded civil society groups can be sent to meet their Azerbaijani counterparts for photo ops, and Armenia can be made to import more Azerbaijani energy. Yet beneath the diplomatic theater lies one-directional concession. Armenia buys; Azerbaijan gains leverage and the appearance of cooperation. Hovik notes sarcastically that he personally sells more than $960 worth of goods on Amazon. The fiction of bilateral peace collapses when examined through the lens of actual economic exchange. As Hovik concludes, there is nothing in the trade balance, and no sign of how these nations would trade with each other in a mutually beneficial way.
Transcript
Hovik Manucharyan: they can spin this in many ways they can send civil society to civil society whose paycheck depends on Western grants to go and meet and take photo ops. They can make Armenia import more Azerbaijani energy. It's funny that when you're looking at, okay, is there any cooperation economically? There's Armenia imported like 18 to $20 million of petroleum products from Azerbaijan. knowing full well that Azerbaijan cannot produce neither the fuel nor the grain that Armenia imported from Azerbaijan it's all essentially Russian white-labeled Russian energy and Russian grains
Asbed Bedrossian: Right.
Hovik Manucharyan: yeah and Armenia exported less than a thousand dollars or something like that I
Asbed Bedrossian: was $960 worth of exports.
Hovik Manucharyan: forget nine hundred I export more than that to Amazon
Asbed Bedrossian: Ha ha
Hovik Manucharyan: So, yeah, that is ridiculous. There is nothing in terms of trade balance or any sign of how these nations would