NAIRIT SAGA: FUTURE OF ARMENIAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRY LOOKS GLOOMY AMID CONCERNS OVER ITS FLAGSHIP
ECONOMY | 10.12.14 | 10:48
GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
RELATED NEWS
Nairit: Chemical plant administration stands by back wages repayment
pledge
Workers of Nairit, a giant chemical plant in Armenia known worldwide
for its chloroprene rubber production, staged several protests near
government offices in Yerevan in recent days demanding their back
wages as well as more clarity over the fate of the enterprise.
Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan received a delegation of the
protesters to hear their complaints on Tuesday and promised to hold
another meeting later this week to learn more about the problems of
the mostly idling plant. At the same time, it was announced that the
workers will be paid their wages for one month by the end of the year.
Nairit, which was built on the outskirts of Yerevan in the 1930s,
supplied up to 30 types of chemical products during the Soviet times.
But the plant was closed in 1989 for environmental reasons. It was
partly resumed in 1992 after Armenia gained independence. Nairit
is the only plant in the post-Soviet space to have the capacity to
produce chloroprene rubber. It is one of the largest enterprises in
Armenia employing a staff of around 3,000. But for years most of the
workers have been furloughed as the plant has either idled or worked
at fraction of its capacity. The plant dogged by financial problems
owes wages for up to 18 months to its workers. The total debt at
present is estimated at some $15 million.
In 2006 Rhinoville Property Limited Company, a 90-percent stakeholder
at Nairit, took a loan from the CIS Interstate Bank mortgaging the
plant. It later failed to repay the loan and in January 2014 the
Moscow Arbitration Court obliged the offshore-registered company to
pay to the CIS Interstate Bank a sum of $107.95 million on account
of outstanding loan commitments.
On Tuesday, the plant’s management assured its employees that it is
committed to clearing the wage arrears. Many workers fear the plant
may soon be declared bankrupt and its obligations on accumulated
wages debts will remain on paper at best.
The statement issued by the Nairit administration says that the
company will sign new contracts with nearly 500 employees, which
actually confirms that more than 1,000 workers will be eventually
laid off in February.
Nairit’s former director Karen Israyelyan believes that the kind
of approach to a giant industrial plant is depriving Armenia of its
major asset.
“If a country like China turns to Armenia for cooperation in the
chemical industry, it means that even there they understand the
value of the enterprise. But we are driving this enterprise towards
bankruptcy, shutting it down, this is absurd,” he told ArmeniaNow,
referring to cooperation projects carried out with China since 2002.
The specialist stresses that Nairit won’t survive another closure
which will also prove a major blow to the country’s chemical industry.
“When the chemical industry was developing on the basis of this plant
we had students, a faculty that trained specialists who later were
hired by the enterprise, but the closure of the plant will spell an
end for the industry in which Armenia used to be a powerhouse during
the Soviet times,” says Israyelyan.
The former Nairit director says that by working at its full capacity
today the plant can employ 2,100 people. He claims that the extra
personnel that were hired in addition to that number in recent years
were rather a liability. Those highly paid people, Israyelyan argues,
“were bloodsuckers who did not provide work worth a penny.”
Israyelyan is surprised that workers at present demand not the
resumption of the plant, but the repayment of the wages. “I think it
is wrong to demand this money, they [the furloughed workers] did not
do any good. Who are we demanding this money from, the state? What
is the state’s obligation on repaying these debts?” he queries.
http://armenianow.com/economy/59193/armenia_nairit_chemical_plant_problems