The Economic Development Ministry of Azerbaijan received a collection of questions from the Russian Aluminum OSC regarding the project of building an aluminum production plant in Azerbaijan, Trend reports. The Economic Development Minister of Azerbaijan Heydar Babayev stressed that the discussions were held on last Friday and today it is planned to forward the replies to the OSC.
Despite that in several stages, we have already provided explanations to the Company, they continue asking the Azerbaijani Government to provide certain privileges. I consider that in today's response, we confirm the previous position. The investment allocations to the prejudice of the state and budget are not in our interests, the Minister underlined.
At the same time, the Minister does not exclude that the privileges will be presented, but
the proposals regarding the sale of the electric power with twice cheaper prices can not the the topic of discussions.
We may guarantee to keep the present electricity prices for a certain period. Discussions can not be held on such privileges or other issues of allocating the land plot, which may be transferred to the investor after certain period, Babaydev underlined. The key issue in the negotiations is the energy supply because the aluminum production demands a large volume of the electric power. In addition, the aluminum production requires gas, and therefore, the prices of the gas are also discussed.
The design capacity of the new aluminum plant in Azerbaijan is 300,000 tons a year and the investments exceed $1 bln.