Thursday, December 28 2017 11:56

ArmInfo. In 2017, the company "Lydian Armenia" paid $ 863.3 thousand to the budgets of local authorities for renting the land, the company informed ArmInfo.

As part of our commitment to full transparency, at the end of each year we are publishing what we have paid to the local governments in the Amulsar surrounding communities.  In 2017 Lydian has paid around USD 863,300 to the communities of Jermuk, Zaritap and Gorayk.  From which:  Jermuk - USD 318, 744 Zaritap- USD 290, 694 Gorayk- USD 253,845 These are direct payments to the municipal budgets of these communities for the rent of the land used under Amulsar project infrastructure.  In 2017 the Amulsar surrounding communities of Gndevaz, Saravan and Gorayk merged into three larger communities of Jermuk, Zaritap and Gorayk, as part of the Government project on community agglomeration. Before the enlargement of the communities, Lydian was paying its land rent payments to the communities of Gndevaz, Saravan and Gorayk. Following the agglomeration project, the payments now go to the larger communities of Jermuk (that includes Gndevaz), Zaritap (that includes Saravan) and Gorayk. Since 2008 Lydian has paid over USD 4 million to three surrounding communities. These payments gave opportunity to the communities to re-invest into infrastructure such as roads, irrigation systems, water supply, street lighting, schools and other local infrastructure repair. Lydian Armenia also encourages the community to invest this money into social development projects Lydian implements, by requiring partial-co-financing of these projects.  Amulsar Project has not started producing yet, but at this active phase of construction the economic impact of the Project on the region is already hugely visible. At this point around 1400 people are working at Amulsar, 482 of which are from the surrounding communities.  Lydian Armenia is also proud to be among the 20 largest taxpayers in Armenia, according to Armenian Tax Authorities' statistics. Considering that Amulsar project hasn't started producing yet the fact that we are already the 19th largest taxpayer in Armenia, demonstrates the visible economic impact of the Amulsar project construction as well as highlights Lydian as an exemplary taxpayer and a responsible corporate citizen. Another indicator of economic activity in the region is the steady incline in local procurement by Lydian Armenia and its contractors in the region. The amount spent monthly on local procurement since March 2017 ranges from USD 54,000 to as much as USD 325,000 in November  2017.