QURGHON TEPPA, June 19, 2015, Asia-Plus — A Chinese delegation is expected to visit TojikAzot, the fertilizer factory, located in the Tajik southern city of Sarband.
According to information posted on the Khatlon regional administration’s website, the delegation will arrive in the province on a two-day visit on June 21.
The main purpose of the visit is for the Chinese delegation to get acquainted with the current situation at TojikAzot and study the opportunities of investing in the factory.
Representatives of the factory confirmed the information about the upcoming visit of the Chinese delegation but they stressed that it will be just a fact-finding visit. “It is necessary to invite the enterprise owner for resumption of its operations. Although the Khatlon Economic Court invalided the transaction for the sale of TojikAzot, the government decision on the establishment of the joint venture TojikAzot should be revoked. It is not the first delegation to visit our enterprise. Several delegations have already visited the factory but without any result,” an official source at TojikAzot told Asia-Plus in an interview.
The fertilizer plant has not been in operation since 2008 due to lack of natural gas supplies.
Until 2008, when neighboring Uzbekistan upped the price of natural gas, a key input for the factory, TojikAzot served as a foreign investment-success story for Tajikistan’s economy.
We will recall that the Khatlon Economic Court invalidated the transaction for the sale of TojikAzot on June 24, 2014.
TojikAzot is partly state owned, with the government controlling a 20 percent stake in the troubled enterprise. Ostark Ventures Limited (Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash is beneficial owner of Ostark Ventures Limited) assumes the 75% ownership interest in the enterprise and Khairullo Saidov, the son of ex-Minister of Industry Zayd Saidov, owns 5 percent of shares in TojikAzot.
Group DF, which is owned by Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash, said it did not agree with the ruling handed won by the Khatlon Economic Court and vowed to appeal to Tajikistan’s superior court.
As far as the sale of 5 percent of shares by Ostark Ventures Limited to Khairullo Saidov is concerned, representatives of the State Committee on Investment and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest) claim that this contract is illegal because the deal was carried out without the authorization of the Tajik government, which owns 20 percent shares in the enterprise.
Tajikistan’s Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption in March last year announced an investigation into a 2002 deal between Dmitry Firtash and the Tajik government to create TojikAzot, a plant specializing in the production of carbamide, an organic compound used in fertilizer. The anticorruption agency accused Firtash of illegal privatization of the company in 2002 and misappropriation of funds.
The anticorruption agency has argued that Zayd Saidov was involved in the fraudulent privatization of TojikAzot.
