ArmInfo. Employees of "Avan Salt Plant" CJSC have revealed that about 2 thousand tons of technical salt was imported to Armenia from January 1 to August 14 this year without any certification,General Director of the "Avan Salt Plant" CJSC, Areg Ghukasyan, informed journalists . In this vein, he stressed that, in parallel with the appearance of technical salt in the market, the sales of the salt mined in the Avan salt miner sharply decreased. "Due to a decline in demand for manufactured products, I had to reduce the average salary to employees from 180 thousand drams to 160 thousand drams." At the same time, the profit was only 1.6% compared to 27% compared to the same period of last year " , - he noted.
Ghukasyan noted that he does not exclude that the imported technical salt, which is mainly used for cleaning snow and ice in the winter season, is sold under the guise of edible salt. "Technical salt is imported in winter, and now it's summer, it is warm, so why is it imported in such quantity now?" Gukasyan wondered. In this vein, he stressed that the cost of Avan Salt Plant production in the market is 144 drams including VAT, and importer pays less than 50 drams for salt imported to Armenia.
There were no any confirmations or proofs of Ghukasyan's statement, moreover, he stressed that he personally did not see such salt on the market shelves. However, the general director of the Avan Salt Plant urged the relevant bodies and journalists to check the message and find out the reason for supply of such a quantity of technical salt in Armenia, given that at the moment there is no such need. According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, in 2017 the production of salt was 32.5 thousand tons, with an y-o-y growth of 0.9%. According to the Customs Service of Armenia, Armenia exported 472.5 tons of salt, sodium chloride and sea water for $ 80 thousand, which is 2-fold more than figure for the previous year . Import amounted to 6.2 thousand tons with an increase of 38.8% y-o-y, with the increase in customs value by 33.3% to $ 973 thousand. According to statistical data, in the first half of this year in Armenia, 10.2 thousand tons of salt were produced with a y-o-y decline of 31%.