ArmInfo.On June 4, Head of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan - Varag Siserian participated in an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors of the Armenian-Chinese joint venture "Shanxi-Nairit" in the Chinese province of Shanxi. According to Siserian on his Facebook page, during the meeting "a number of agenda items were discussed and important decisions were made."
Recall that in 2003 an agreement was signed on the creation of a joint venture between Shansi Joint-Stock Company for the Production of Synthetic Rubbers and Nairit CJSC, according to which Shansi-Nairit chloroprene rubber plant was established on the basis of Nairit-2. "(operates in China). The share of the Armenian side in the company is 40%. As the then Deputy Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of the Republic, Iosif Isayan, the Armenian co-chairman of the company, declared in 2015, Shanxi-Nairit produces rubber, but with a loss for itself The reasons are the same, the traditional ones - the gap between the cost price and the sale price. Today, Siserian, who represents the Armenian government on the Shansi-Nairit Board of Directors, reports that a protocol was drawn up following the meeting, according to which the Armenian side was given the right to nominate its candidates for 4 key posts in the Shansi-Nairit joint venture Deputy Director, Chief Engineer and Deputy Chief Accountant. Armenia will select its candidates on a competitive basis. The company's charter also introduced changes that will contribute to further improving management efficiency. Varag Siserian also reports that the Chinese side has accepted the proposal of the Armenian side to prolong the bilateral agreement. Deadlines will be specified later. In addition, it was decided to purchase a thermal power plant in the vicinity of the company to include it in the enterprise, which today is an integral component of the production cycle. "This transaction will reduce the cost of products manufactured at the enterprise, and increase productivity," - says Siserin. The first three years will be preferential for payments, he notes. At the same time, an agreement was reached that an Armenian specialist would also take part in estimating the cost of a thermal power station and conducting an audit, and the Chinese side would pay him a "travel allowance". Earlier it was reported that the annual income of the enterprise at its full capacity was expected to be $ 100 million. The then Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Armen Movsisyan stated in 2011 that in the next three years, Shanxi-Nairit would be operating at full capacity . Then, as the minister noted, the enterprise can produce about 10 thousand tons of rubber on acetylene and up to 25 thousand tons on butadiene technology. Later it turned out that the enterprise reached its design capacity only in 2017. As the official information testified, during the visit of Artur Grigoryan, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, to the plant with the shareholder of Shansi-Nairit JV, the Blue star CEO, a mutual agreement was reached on increasing the production capacity of the enterprise, selling products, expanding markets. The minister proposed to conduct an international audit in the Shansy-Nairit joint venture, to create appropriate financial conditions for the replenishment of posts with Armenian quotas. At present, it is not known whether these agreements have been fulfilled.