In one of the previous editions of “168 Hours”, we had mentioned that both the tire producing “Doghagorts” (Tire maker) factory and the “Electron Gold” battery-producing factories, have started doing poor in production thanks to the tires and batteries imported by the “Mets Aniv” (Big Tire) company.
The “Mets Aniv” company has “taken control” of their markets. Everyone knows that the company belongs to former head of the presidential administration Artashes Tumanyan. We later found out that general Arshaluys Paytyan is a shareholder. These influential people have used their contacts and have taken control of the market by importing products. “168 Hours” wanted to find out how the “Electron Gold” factory is doing after all this. According to our sources, the shareholders are former chief prosecutor of Armenia Aram Tamazyan and Minister of Trade and Economic Development of Armenia Karen Tchshmarityan.
“Electron Gold” was founded in 1993 after the former “Electron” factory closed down. The factory has produced batteries for cars and military equipment and has only accepted orders from the Ministry of Defense. It has been considered as a military factory in some way. A couple of years ago, the factory decided to produce batteries for the large market out there. The 60 amps batteries are imported to Armenia from different countries. The owner’s adviser Zohrap Zakeosyan assures that they can produce more high-quality batteries than the ones they get from abroad. Besides that, he says that their produced batteries will be cheaper. Whereas the imported battery costs 17,000 drams, “Electron Gold” has calculated the price to be 15,000 AMD with high quality. But they can’t do that now because the company doesn’t have the money to import the raw material; the factory hasn’t done anything this year. The Ministry of Defense hasn’t ordered any batteries this year. In response to our question as to why the Ministry of Defense doesn’t order any batteries from “Electron Gold”, the press department of the ministry replied that there was some competition and “Electron Gold” lost because there was no competitor with a good price and quality. The “Mets Aniv” company won the contest.
“We have sent 100 of our workers on a vacation for three months already . Now we don’t know what to do. We can’t get a loan for the new project because banks require a contract for completing a project. But the Ministry of Justice hasn’t signed a contract with us,” says Zohrap Sakeosyan
Last year, “Electron Gold” supplied 260 million AMD worth of batteries to the Ministry of Defense. According to Mr. Zakeosyan, there is a military official at the factory that checks up on the quality of the batteries and then takes them. Besides that, they give a three-year guarantee. If the battery breaks, the factory must repair it free of charge. But “Mets Aniv” doesn’t have enough money to repair it. It doesn’t even have the equipment needed to check up on the quality of imported products.
“As far as I know, that company even imports batteries from Turkey,” says Z. Zakeosyan. “I think that the company is not careful with importing products from that country. After all, it’s for the army and it’s considered as military equipment.”
Z. Zakeosyan still hopes that the Ministry of Defense will give an order to “Electron Gold” and the company will have the opportunity to produce batteries for the people. It’s obvious that they will then be able to open more workplaces. For the time being, their workers are losing their professional skills since they are not working.