DUSHANBE, December 24, 2013, Asia-Plus — The Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) is not going to dismiss its employees despite the difficult financial situation caused by global financial crisis, TALCO management notes.
More than 10,000 people now work with the company, which operates the Tajik aluminum smelter with the rated capacity of producing 517,000 tons of primary aluminum per year.
“In some countries, not more than 2,000 people work with aluminum plant with annual capacity of 1 million tons. Meanwhile, Tajik aluminum smelter now provides little more than 200,000 tons of primary aluminum per year,” a statement released by TALCO management on December 23 says.
To ensure social protectability of its employees, the company will not dismiss them but it will gradually reduce the number of staff in a different way: it will not hire new workers to replace those retiring for age reasons.
The company management notes that negative impact of global financial crisis has made TALCO work in a hard anti-crisis regime.
The fall in the international aluminum prices and the rise in cost of the main raw materials and railway tariffs as well as other factors reportedly can lead to the rise in aluminum cost prices and the cost price of one ton of primary aluminum will rise by 400-450 U.S. dollars.
TALCO incurs serious financial losses due to long transport arms, high power costs and geographical remoteness from sources of the main raw materials. Today, transport expenses account for more than 30 percent of the cost prices of the primary aluminum.
TALCO has reportedly worked out the strategic anti-crisis measures to reduce production expenses. The company managements has analyzed external and internal risk factors and has come to a conclusion that further increase in aluminum production volume will lead to increase in financial expenses and will extremely affect the state of the enterprise. Therefore, the production program for 2013 provided for 20 percent decrease in production volumes against last year.
Over the first eleven months of this year, Tajik aluminum smelter has produced 218,200 tons of raw aluminum, which is 30.7 percent fewer than in the same period last year.
Over the same eleven-month period, the plant has produced little more than 216,000 tons of primary aluminum, which is 79.3 percent of the January-November 2012 level.
Being in an awkward situation due to effects of the ongoing global financial crisis, the company today needs a real financial support from the government for further post-crisis restoration of its capacity as never before, TALCO management stressed.
The aluminum plant, run by the Tajik Aluminum Company, was launched in late March 1975. It is one of the ten largest aluminum smelters in the world and provides up to 70% of the country’s foreign currency earnings, consuming 40% of the country’s electrical power. Tajikistan does not mine alumina but imports the raw material through tolling arrangements.
Over the first eleven months of this year, TALCO’s share in Tajikistan’s exports has reportedly amounted to 36 percent.
