Armenian companies importing and selling LPG say hundreds of their vehicles have been held up by Georgian authorities since last week for unknown reasons.
“Our drivers have been stuck there for the last eight or nine days, and there are still no signs that the Georgians will let them through,” a representative of one of those companies told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday.
He said that as many as 500 LPG trucks bound for Armenia remain stranded at Georgian customs terminals.
As of Tuesday evening, the Armenian Economy Ministry declined to comment on the problem and it causes. The only official reaction so far has been Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan’s Facebook posts saying that 44 LPG trucks entered Armenia on Monday and 99 others over the weekend. Papoyan said the price hike would have been even sharper had they not delivered the fuel.
Armenian taxi drivers have been hit particularly hard by the increased cost of LPG. As one of them put it, “I now spend an extra 3,500-4,000 drams ($9-10) every day.”
The Georgian authorities have also not commented on the looming fuel crisis in Armenia. They already disrupted some of the multimillion-dollar exports of Armenian brandy to Russia after introducing in late April physical checks on the alcoholic beverage. As a result, many Armenian trucks loaded with brandy were left stuck in Georgia pending the results of lengthy quality tests.
Papoyan announced late last month that Tbilisi and Yerevan have reached an agreement that should remove the transit hurdles. Some of the affected Armenian brandy producers say they still have difficulty carrying out shipments to Russia through Georgia.