Newspaper: Political decision made to temporary shut down Nairirt Pant

 Political decision has been adopted to temporary shut down the Nairit Plant, a local Haykakan Zhamanak Daily writes. 

"The authorities of Armenia pin no hopes with reactivation of the plant. The process of the temporary shutdown has been launched. Almost 2,000 employees will be dismissed in February. Some 480 people will remain at the plant to keep it in the state of conservation. Later, the staff will be reduced to 250 people.  The plant will be fully liquidated in few years, unless there are prospects of its reactivation," the paper writes. 

As it was reporter earlier, 1,700 employees of the Nairit Plan will be dismissed starting February 6 2015.  The employees have already received relevant notifications. Earlier today, on 16 January, the staff of the Nairirt Plant disseminated an open letter addressed to President Serzh Sargsyan, wherein they demand their salaries for 18 months.  The staff recalls that the government represented by the Nairirt-2 state CJSC has a 5 billion drams debt to the Nairit Plant CJSC and ask to spend that amount to repay the areas of wages.  They recall that the prime minister and minister of energy and natural resources have already declared that the salaries of the Nairit staff will not be paid. The staff qualifies the decision as a violation of the Labor Code of Armenia and urges the president to tackle the problem.

Nairit has been standing idle for quite a while already, with its employees haven't been paid wages for as long as 15 months. The plant's debts total 50bln AMD or $130mln (including 5bln AMD in unpaid wages).  In the 1980s Nairit had almost 10-12% of the global rubber market. In 2006 90% of Nairit Plant was sold to Rhinoville Property Limited for $40mln. The remaining 10% is owned by the Armenian Government. Since Apr 2010 the plant has been idle, with its shares given as security against the CIS InterStateBank's loan.