ArmInfo. The products of the Yerevan factory "Armenal" can return to the American market. The Office of Foreign Investments Control of the US Treasury Department (OFAC) stated that US citizens and their partners can make new contracts with UK Rusal, which owns the Armenal factory, and other companies of Oleg Deripaska on the sanctions list.
But the permission, according to the newspaper Kommersant, is valid only for those companies that for several years already purchased goods and services of UC Rusal, GAZ Group or other companies of Deripaska, and provided them with maintenance services, reports OFAC. The Office explains that transactions and actions that were not in previously concluded contracts can be considered as maintaining business activity, and this will not be considered a violation of the sanctions regime. But for this, UC Rusal's contracting companies will have to have documents in hand that they buy UC Rusal products for several years in a row and will not buy a new contract under the new agreement than in previous years. Thus, OFAC partially eliminated the threat that in the next year UC Rusal, which exports 80% of the output, will only work for the warehouse.
According to ArmInfo analysts, the decision will allow the UC Rusal subsidiary - the Armenal factory in Yerevan - to resume the supply of foil to the US, suspended from the middle of the year in connection with the sanctions imposed on Oleg Deripaska, a large shareholder of UC Rusal. "Armenal" is the largest exporter of finished products not only in the US, but also in the countries of the European Union. In 2017, the plant's proceeds from the export of Armenian foil to the US amounted to about $ 47.2 million.