Sugar factory out of production

18/04/2006

Recently the head of the Sevan sugar factory, Armen Arakelyan announced that their factory produced 650 tons of sugar in 2004, and 350-400 tons – in 2005. According to Mr. Arakelyan this year so far the factory produces about 700-750 tons of sugar per month and they will produce about 8000 tons of sugar this year. According to him the fact that the prices for sugar have increased doesn’t hurt their production, because this increase mainly has to do with the increase of prices for raw materials imported from South America. He said this about ten days ago. But yesterday we talked to Mr. Arakelyan and he told us that he couldn’t say anything regarding the increase of prices because at the time their factory wasn’t working. This means that the domestic market of sugar is currently under the monopolistic control of “Flit Food” company belonging to MP Samvel Alexanyan.

According to the state committee on economical competition protection, Armenia uses 100-120.000 tones of sugar per year. According to them, “Flit Food” company imports 90%.