Armenian opposition party speaks in favor of nationalizing mining and metallurgical companies

YEREVAN, May 10, /ARKA/. A senior member of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) party spoke today in favor of nationalizing the country’s lucrative mining and metallurgical companies, saying the government must set up a large state-owned company to run the sector and work also out a strategy how to develop it.

Speaking at the National Assembly (parliament) Vahan Hovhanesian, ARF secretary, said the government has failed to remedy Armenia's tax legislation regulating the work of mining companies. According to him, because of this the government loses billions of drams in revenues which it needs badly to finance social programs.

He said being the most lucrative sector of Armenian economy mining and metallurgical companies enjoy a set of privileges concerning, particularly, export of precious metals depriving the government of additional revenues.

Vahan Hovhanesian said Armenia’s mining and metallurgical companies, the largest export-oriented sector of the national economy, export mainly concentrates and the acting legislation ignores the percentage of precious metals in them.

‘The current situation in this sector does not encourage owners to introduce new technology and make investments because they already make super profits,’ he said. In his opinion, only nationalization of the sector could help improve this situation.

The latest official figures show that mining and metallurgical companies appear to have ended 2010 with significant production gains resulting from a rally in global prices of copper and other base metals. The output was said to have grown by 24.3% from 2009 to 145.5 billion drams. In 2011 March the companies reported a 2.3% production rise from a year earlier to 13.3 billion drams ($1 – 372.46 drams).  -0-