The government of Armenia intends to impose restrictions on the export of ferrous and non-ferrous metal scrap with the aim of ensuring a raw stock base for the country's own re-processing plants.

A bill introducing changes to Armenian law on state duties was adopted at an October 4 government meeting. According to procedure, the bill is to now be submitted for parliamentary approval.

The changes involve the introduction of an export duty 80 times the size of the basic duty per tonne of ferrous scrap and 250 times the size for non-ferrous scrap.

Finance Minister Vache Gabrielian, who presented the draft bill, said that the change is intended to encourage secondary metal processing in Armenia. "We are thereby creating an opportunity for the more effective use of the processing capacity we have in Charentsavan and other places, and to obtain finished product in the republic," the minister said.

Production in Charentsavan is being set up by OJSC Aske Group, which has raised $15 million from Ameriabank for the building there of the republic's first rolling mill for the production of rebar. It is slated to go into operation early next year. The company's director, Hachatur Antonian, said the rolling mill's output capacity will be 125,000 tonnes per year against domestic market volume of 50,000 tonnes, which leaves room for exports. Scrap the republic possesses will serve as raw stock. Armenia does not now produce rebar, and imports it mainly from Ukraine.

The Aske Group plant in Charentsavan had been smelting pig iron and steel, but has been mothballed for the last several years. From 1986 to 2002, the enterprise was part of the production association ArmAvto (a producer of steel bearings and wheel sets), but since 2002 it has been a separate legal entity. The company has 377 shareholders, main among them Moroko Holding (49%) and Mikhail Aryutyunian (50%).