From the data · story 3
Every procurement system is supposed to have one: budget money spent in a hurry before 31 December, awarded without competition, pushed through urgent procedures. We tested it against 235,570 signed contracts in PPCM, Armenia's public contracts registry. December is the busiest month by contract count and an ordinary month by money. The peak is at the other end of the calendar, and it is not a rush at all.
The headline
December is the busiest month and an unremarkable one for money. It holds 20,094 contracts, 10.45 percent of the count against 8.33 percent for an even month, but its 424,043,419,447 AMD is only 10.71 percent of the value. January holds 638,976,946,239 AMD, 16.14 percent, 1.94 times an even month and 1.51 times December's money. January and February together take 29.02 percent of the value on 19.72 percent of the contracts. The quiet end of the year is autumn: October holds 5.22 percent of the value, November 5.83.
The December bump rests on two years. Its share of the year's value is below an even month in four of the eight complete years: 3.46 percent in 2018, 6.74 in 2022, 7.42 in 2023, 6.10 in 2025. It clears an even month in 2019 (9.60), 2024 (9.90) and then twice by a lot, in 2020 (29.03) and 2021 (19.58). Take those two years out and there is no pattern left to explain.
No buyer of any size runs a December cliff. Among the 129 state buyers that signed at least 50 contracts worth at least 500,000,000 AMD between 2018 and 2025, the median share of value signed in December is 7.69 percent, below what an even month would give them. One is above half, three above a third, eight above a quarter. The most concentrated buyer in the whole registry is the Migration Service of the Territorial Administration Ministry at 83.07 percent, on a lifetime total of 1,548,737,498 AMD.
December contracts are not bigger and are not more urgent. The median December contract is 450,000 AMD against 434,850 for the rest of the year; the mean is 21,150,353 against 20,609,701. Urgent procedure forms carry 29.79 percent of December value against 29.43 percent for the other eleven months. Pooled by month, December ranks ninth of twelve on the urgent share of its own value; eight months run higher, from February at 43.68 percent down to July at 32.54. December is more single source (36.77 percent of contracts against 32.65), and by value that gap comes almost entirely from December 2020 and December 2021; in 2023 and 2024 December was less single source than the rest of its year.
What January really is: the state medical order. In January 2018 the Ministry of Health signed 73.19 percent of the month's value and 89.24 percent of the month was awarded single source. January 2019: 71.92 and 87.82. January 2020: 68.18 and 83.55. January 2023: 56.15 and 59.20. Pooled over the eight years, 61.25 percent of January value is single source, the highest of any month, and 3.37 percent is urgent, the lowest of any month. PPCM records state-order payments to public hospitals as single-source contracts, and they are signed at the top of the budget year. That is a booking convention, not a spending sprint.
Since 2024 the peak moved to February, and changed character. February 2024 held 14.69 percent of that year's value with 51.04 percent of the month awarded under urgent procedures and the City Planning Committee taking 46.35 percent of it. February 2025 held 27.79 percent of the year with 70.72 percent urgent and the Armenian Territorial Development Fund taking 66.08 percent. The front of the Armenian procurement year is now large accelerated construction tenders rather than annual medical contracts.
The tables
| Month | Share of value | Share of count | Value index vs even month | Single source, share of month value | Urgent, share of month value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 16.14% | 10.27% | 1.94 | 61.25% | 3.37% |
| February | 12.88% | 9.45% | 1.55 | 13.42% | 43.68% |
| March | 7.17% | 9.95% | 0.86 | 14.84% | 34.26% |
| April | 6.64% | 9.22% | 0.80 | 9.23% | 21.07% |
| May | 8.05% | 8.33% | 0.97 | 5.41% | 25.70% |
| June | 6.91% | 7.60% | 0.83 | 7.01% | 37.40% |
| July | 7.54% | 6.95% | 0.90 | 10.96% | 32.54% |
| August | 6.25% | 6.06% | 0.75 | 8.96% | 40.70% |
| September | 6.65% | 6.82% | 0.80 | 14.82% | 37.18% |
| October | 5.22% | 7.40% | 0.63 | 12.09% | 37.33% |
| November | 5.83% | 7.51% | 0.70 | 14.01% | 37.35% |
| December | 10.71% | 10.45% | 1.29 | 35.41% | 29.79% |
An even month would hold 8.33 percent of both. 2026 is left out of every pooled figure because the snapshot stops on 6 September and the year has no autumn yet. Every month of every year, with the largest buyer of each month: 10-monthly-distribution.csv.
| Year | December share of value | December share of count | Single source, December | Single source, rest of year | Signed from 22 Dec, share of December value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 3.46% | 8.56% | 23.58% | 53.07% | 28.89% |
| 2019 | 9.60% | 10.92% | 29.97% | 48.19% | 49.51% |
| 2020 | 29.03% | 12.54% | 71.48% | 36.46% | 91.28% |
| 2021 | 19.58% | 13.53% | 46.79% | 14.83% | 54.35% |
| 2022 | 6.74% | 9.91% | 32.95% | 20.39% | 51.68% |
| 2023 | 7.42% | 9.46% | 11.41% | 22.10% | 28.39% |
| 2024 | 9.90% | 10.35% | 5.21% | 7.00% | 30.89% |
| 2025 | 6.10% | 9.35% | 11.87% | 9.08% | 39.28% |
| 2018 to 2025 | 10.71% | 10.45% | 35.41% | 20.20% | 54.64% |
Single-source columns are shares of value. The last column is the only place a real end-of-year rush shows: 5,875 contracts, 29.24 percent of December's count, are signed on 22 December or later and carry 231,700,965,982 AMD. That is 54.64 percent of December but 5.85 percent of the whole year. Mean and median contract, distinct buyers and suppliers, urgent shares: 11-december-vs-rest.csv.
| Buyer | Contracts | Value, AMD | Share signed in December |
|---|---|---|---|
| Migration Service of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure | 386 | 1,548,737,498 | 83.07% |
| Administration of the Council of Public Broadcaster | 248 | 55,522,992,647 | 39.37% |
| State Protocol Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs | 1,952 | 1,591,606,902 | 35.03% |
| Criminal Executive Service of the Ministry of Justice | 1,184 | 31,010,382,135 | 30.58% |
| Ecopatrol Service | 968 | 8,797,105,523 | 29.62% |
| Staff of Lori Marzpet | 1,446 | 5,547,483,649 | 27.66% |
| Staff of Armavir Marzpet | 1,320 | 3,592,109,510 | 26.84% |
| National Security Service | 2,408 | 23,646,137,562 | 25.76% |
| Public Radio of Armenia | 1,397 | 1,221,467,985 | 22.65% |
| Sevan Mental Health Center | 937 | 1,740,634,011 | 22.02% |
Ranked among the 129 buyers with at least 50 contracts and at least 500,000,000 AMD over 2018 to 2025, out of 313 buyers in the window. Without that floor a body with three contracts reaches 100 percent and the ranking says nothing. The median buyer on this list sits at 7.69 percent. The Ministry of Health is 16th at 17.90 percent of 560,239,553,437 AMD. Top 30 with tax IDs: 12-buyer-december-concentration.csv.
| Year | Urgent contracts | Urgent value, AMD | Share of year count | Share of year value | Of it signed in December |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 221 | 23,071,806,232 | 1.47% | 10.70% | 6.29% |
| 2019 | 545 | 63,471,168,621 | 3.02% | 26.29% | 10.90% |
| 2020 | 1,102 | 70,521,524,941 | 6.00% | 17.41% | 32.34% |
| 2021 | 577 | 102,393,321,300 | 2.80% | 31.78% | 23.20% |
| 2022 | 800 | 117,715,243,511 | 3.23% | 20.20% | 4.95% |
| 2023 | 1,702 | 158,189,365,753 | 5.89% | 24.94% | 8.10% |
| 2024 | 1,124 | 347,416,032,205 | 3.44% | 42.07% | 12.71% |
| 2025 | 1,327 | 283,579,854,809 | 3.91% | 38.79% | 3.04% |
| 2026* | 709 | 80,905,079,728 | 3.26% | 14.39% | none |
* to 6 Sep, no December yet. "Urgent" is PPCM's own two procedure forms, urgent single source and urgent open tender. The growth is entirely in urgent open tender, which went from 147 contracts worth 22,291,130,513 AMD in 2018 to 723 worth 333,983,305,637 AMD in 2024; urgent single source shrank to 13,432,726,568 AMD that year. Two buyers hold 61.40 percent of all urgent value: the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure (925 contracts, 418,145,449,528 AMD, 58.02 percent of its own spend) and the Armenian Territorial Development Fund (764 contracts, 347,643,256,065 AMD, 64.75 percent). Add the City Planning Committee and the top three hold 73.76 percent. Full tables: 13-urgent-procedures-by-year.csv and 14-top-urgent-buyers.csv.
Method and caveats
Reproduce it
Five CSV tables, the run metadata with every exclusion, and the one-file pipeline. node analyze3.mjs streams the weekly index and rebuilds every number on this page.
Single-source awards fell from 52.04 to 6.83 percent of contract value while staying near four in ten procedures by count. The Ministry of Health signed 486.7 billion AMD without competition, and 1,017 companies get over 90 percent of their public revenue from one buyer.
The Health Ministry's share of its own spend fell from 95.70 to 5.98 percent. The money moved to the Public Broadcaster, Yerevan Municipality, the High-Tech Industry Ministry and the Probation Service, while the supplier base grew 2.5 times.