DUSHANBE, November 15, 2010, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan’s largest empties production plant, Lal, is currently not in operation for lack of natural gas.
Tajik natural-gas distributor, Tojiktransgaz, has cut off gas supplies to the enterprise due to its debts. Lal now owes more than one million U.S. dollars to Tojiktransgaz.
The source at Tojiktransgaz says they filed lawsuit against Lal and court handed down ruling on confiscating Lal’s property towards the repayment of its debt. “However, it turned out that the property of this enterprise is pledged as security for the repayment of a loan that they have taken from one of banks.”
He added that gas supplies to Lal will not be resumed until it fully repay its debt.
We will recall that the Lal deputy director Abdurazoq Majidov told Asia-Plus on July 2 that the enterprise’s debts for natural gas, electricity and taxes have exceeded 8 million somoni. According to him, the debts emerged during the global financial crisis when the enterprise’s output was not in demand and output for more than 14 million somoni has amassed in storages.
Located in Khujand, the enterprise was founded in 1949. In 1997, the plant was reorganized into cooperative enterprise Lal and in 1999, it was reorganized into joint-stock company (JSC) Lal. The enterprise has the rated capacity of producing 90,000 empties per day, but it now produces not more than 60,000-70,000 empties per day.
