Tuesday, May 21 2019 16:52

ArmInfo.On July 1, 2019, the law will take effect at identifying the real beneficiaries of field of mineral resource use and extraction of commercial minerals. This was  stated by the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan at the  scientific conference "Basic Guidelines of the Economic Revolution in  Armenia" on May 21 in Yerevan.

According to the head of government, a legal act will help increase  transparency in the field. He will also oblige companies involved in  the mining sector to reveal their real owners. "In the opposite case,  they will not be able to function," Pashinyan said.

To recall, on April 18 in the RA National Assembly, introducing the  package, Acting Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural  Resources Garegin Baghramian noted that the documents were developed  based on the standards adopted within the framework of the  Transparency Initiative, the country has been a candidate country  since March 2017. Speech, in the words,. Minister, is about  identifying the real owners of mining companies. The package presents  the mechanisms for their identification and registration procedure.

Baghramyan noted that in Armenia there are owners of mining companies  that are registered in offshore zones, and the task of the package is  to identify the last company and individual by registering them  before November 30 of this year. in the state register of the  republic. In case of non-registration, penalties will come into  force, up to and including the revocation of the license and  termination of the company's activities.

The amendments to the Subsoil Code and the package of related laws  provide for the application of fines for violating the requirements  for publicity in the field of subsoil use. In particular, for  violation of the deadlines for submitting a public report to the  government apparatus and the authorities, the relevant officials will  be fined in the amount of 150 thousand drams. If after applying the  fine, the company does not submit a corresponding report within 10  days, the responsible person will be already fined 200 thousand  drams. A repeated violation of the requirement during the year will  be charged a fine of 300 thousand drams, after which the provision on  revoking the license and suspending the activities of the mining  company will come into force.

It should be noted that polymetallic deposits constitute a  significant part of the problems in the field of the mining industry  of Armenia.  At the state balance of mineral reserves at the present  time are registered more than 670 solid mineral deposits with proven  reserves, including 30 metal. About 400 of these deposits are  exploited, including 22 metallic. For metallic minerals there are 7  copper-molybdenum deposits, 4 copper, 14 gold and gold- polymetallic  deposits, 2 iron ore and 1 aluminum ore. There are also 15 tailing  dumps in Armenia, where waste accumulated during the operation of  mineral deposits, which exceed several million cubic meters and  occupy a total area of about 700 hectares, is accumulated. At  present, industrial wastes accumulated in tailings dumps, which are  formed as a result of industrial mining and mineral processing, are  not used, although they also contain significant amounts of  polymetals.  On March 9, 2017 in Colombian Bogota, Armenia's  candidacy was approved for introducing the Extractive Industries  Transparency Initiative (EITI) standards, which is the international  standard for transparency and accountability in the extractive  industries, oil and gas. Standards of the Initiative provide for an  annual report on the state-issued subsoil use licenses, production  volumes, tax revenues and other information in the field of mining.