DUSHANBE, August 4, 2016, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan is seeking investors for resumption of operations at the debt-ridden and loss-making fertilizer plant, which is located in the southern province of Khatlon
The Tajik government is currently considering a draft investment agreement with one Chinese large company on production of mineral fertilizers and TojikAzot will probably have a new sponsor this year, Qodir Qosim, the head of the State Committee on Investment and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest), announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on August 4.
“We hope the draft agreement on investing in TojikAzot will be endorsed and signed in the near future,” said Qosim. “Chinese company intends to invest 250 million U.S. dollars in modernization of the plant.”
Tajik officials consider that it could be possible to resume operations at the loss-making fertilizer factory located in the southern city of Sarband through introduction of the coal-produced syngas technology, which has already been used in Tajikistan.
The debt-ridden and loss-making 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.
TojikAzot was 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) assumed the 75% ownership interest in the enterprise and Khairullo Saidov, the son of ex-Minister of Industry Zayd Saidov, owned 5 percent of shares in TojikAzot.
On June 24, 2014, the Khatlon Economic Court invalidated the transaction for the sale of TojikAzot.
We will recall that Tajikistan’s Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption in March 2014 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.
Firtash was arrested in Vienna on March 12, 2014, and released on a 125 million Euro bail two days later.
Following Firtash’s arrest, Tajikistan’s anticorruption agency charged him on March 15 with the illegal privatization of the clothing factory Guliston in 2002.
The anticorruption agency has argued that Zayd Saidov was involved in the fraudulent privatization of Guliston and TojikAzot.
