President of Armenia met former employees of Nairit plant

ArmInfo. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on May 15 met with the former director of Nairit plant Karen Israyelyan, members of the coordinative group Nairit, as well as the lawyer of the workers of the plant Tigran Sarkissian. 

According to the press service of the President, the agreement on the  meeting was reached on May 7, when the president met with former  employees of the Nairit plant during a protest outside the residence.  During the meeting with the president, the lawyer expressed  dissatisfaction with the employees of the plant in connection with  the judicial system in the country, assessing the attitude of judges  towards the employees of the plant as biased. In the opinion of the  lawyer, the rights of the Nainites are violated, the judges  deliberately pull the lawsuits of the latter.

Representatives of the plant's employees also raised questions  related to the re-launch of the plant, and presented their vision of  this issue. They noted that the plant's problems had not been  resolved for years, and the actions of the former government in this  direction had not yielded any results.

Answering the questions posed by the meeting participants, President  Armen Sargsyan noted that the judicial system in the new conditions  must also undergo changes step by step, and not impartial judges  should not serve in the system. The President stated that within the  framework of the powers entrusted to him by the Constitution, these  issues were discussed with the leadership of the system.

The President of the Republic noted the importance of discussing this  issue with the Armenian government.  The main task, according to  Armen Sarkissian, is a review of the professional revaluation of the  current state of the plant and the possibility of its re-operation,  as well as the potential interest of investors in this direction.  

To recall, the former Armenian government decided to sell its  Nairit-2 CJSC with all the buildings and territory included in the  complex to 10.3 thousand hectares for 626.9 million drams of the  company A-S Investments. According to the decision of the government,  at this territory will be built affordable office space for small and  medium-sized businesses, which will also be leased, a hotel complex,  an exhibition hall for construction, agricultural, small and  medium-sized equipment, a warehouse, a service center, sales and  rentals, parking. Despite the fact that today "Nairit-2" and "Nairit"  are different companies, but they are closely related to each other.  At one time, Nairit-2 was the institute of the Nairit plant, all new  technologies appeared through Nairit-2. There they passed the test,  then they were used at the enterprise. The chemical giant of Armenia  - Nairit plant is idle since March 2010. The enterprise completely  stopped working in 2014. The total debt of the enterprise approached  the mark of 50 billion drams (about $ 130 million). The court of  Yerevan's Shengavit administrative district at the end of November  2016 declared Nairit Plant CJSC bankrupt on the basis of a lawsuit  filed by Electric Networks of Armenia. In general, the plant has 292  lenders. The largest lenders are the Ministry of Finance of Armenia  (about 11 billion drams), the State Revenue Committee (10 billion),  Yerevan Thermal Power Plant, Gazprom Armenia (about 23 billion drams)  and Nairit-2 (6 billion drams), which and entered the board of  creditors. Until the end of the 80s, the plant's products accounted  for 10-12% of the world synthetic rubber market. In 2006, 90% of  shares of Nairit were sold to the British consortium Rhainoville  Property Limited. The consortium owns 89.999% of the shares of JSC  Nairit Plant, RA Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources - 4,496%,  ArmRosgazprom JSC - 3.596, Yerevan Electric TPP - 1.907%. The fixed  assets of the plant and the main shareholder of Rhinoville Property  Limited were pledged under the loan of Intergasbank and transferred  to the bank's ownership as a result of a non-repayment of the loan.  The loan for $ 70 million was granted in 2006 on the security of the  plant for a period of 5 years - until the end of December 2011, at  12.5% per annum. In 2015, with the assistance of Jacobs Consultancy  specialists, the WB commissioned the Armenian government to conduct a  financial and technical audit of the Nairit plant. According to WB  estimates, the restart of "Nairit" seems inappropriate, since it  requires at least $ 250 million in capital investments. But even in  case of investors, the WB experts doubt that the products of the  plant will find a buyer and will be competitive.  The WB auditors  came to the conclusion that in the conditions of the production  process based on both butadiene and acetylene, Nairit's products will  have a rather high cost, including due to the considerable wear and  tear of a significant part of the company's fixed assets. Most  experts believe that the results of the World Bank audit should be  considered as a recommendation to the bankruptcy process of the  plant, which, in fact, happened.