BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 22
By Fidan Babyeva – Trend:
Azerbaijan's AzerGold leading gold mining closed joint-stock company is taking appropriate steps to legally assess the illegal actions of a number of Armenian and European companies engaged in illegal extraction and trade from non-ferrous metal deposits in the occupied Azerbaijani territories at the international level, AzerGold CJSC told Trend.
“The preparatory stage of the project was launched in 2016,” the company said. “The files collected during the preparatory stage in 2018 were transferred to the Azerbaijani General Prosecutor's Office.”
"The files contained the information from open sources about individuals and legal entities engaged in illegal mining and trade in gold, silver, copper, molybdenum and other non-ferrous metals in the occupied Azerbaijani territories," the company said.
An authoritative international law firm and a number of local experts were involved in the implementation of the project in 2019-2020 to ensure the implementation of the international component of the project.
“Strategy Document”, which outlines the necessary steps to prevent the illegal production and trade of non-ferrous metals, including gold, was prepared during this period.
“We believe that the implementation of this strategy will lead to the specific legal measures in relation to the deposits of non-ferrous metals,” the company said. “The desired results will be achieved."
The volume of gold mined in the country increased by one-fifth (21.3 percent), silver - by a third (33.2 percent) in 2019 compared to 2018.
Despite the company planned to produce 50,000 ounces of gold in 2019, at the end of the year the company produced by 10.4 percent more, namely 55,200 ounces.
Some 87,400 ounces of silver were planned to be produced during the year, while the actual volume exceeded the forecast by 17.9 percent, amounting to 103,000 ounces.
The production figures for 2019 are record highs recorded for the entire period of the activity of the Chovdar mining and processing complex.
AzerGold transferred about 13.5 million manat ($7.9 million) to the state budget last year.
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