Recently, with the decision made by the Karabagh government, the Stepanakert wine factory was among the many privatized enterprises. The “Stepanakert Cognac Factory” joint stock company, created by the “Karabagh Gold” company, bought the factory.
According to the statistics given by the Ministry of Territorial Management and Development of Productive Infrastructures, as of January 1, 2006, the company has a debt worth 73 million 23 thousand dram and that debt has been transferred to the company that has purchased the factory.
“Taking into consideration the fact that the factory has not had success in selling its products for years and it has lost 80 million drams and that, the buyer has promised to invest 600 million drams in the factory for a two year period, create new work places and keep business flowing at a stable rate, the government has agreed to sell the company for 30 million drams,” said head of the state property management and privatization department of the ministry Arsen Abrahamyan. The buyer has promised to return the money until April 1, 2006. Last year, eight other companies were privatized besides the wine factory and the total price of all the establishments has been estimated to be 111.1 million drams. The owners of all nine companies have promised to make investments worth 56.2 millino drams. A total of 91 restaurants were privatized throughout the course of last year. During 2005, the government has accepted 81 privatization applications. According to A. Abrahamyan, 250.3 million drams received from the privatization of state property has been transferred to the state budget and 267.8 million from the alienation of state property. In general, as of January 1, 2006, 65 comapanies, which the state owns part of, have been privatized. Out of the 65 companies, 33 have just been put up for sale (18 through a contest and 14 without a contest).