RUSAL: Armenia can wrap in foil all of Europe

Based on the appeal submitted by five European foil producers, the European Commission earlier this year initiated an anti-dumping investigation in relation to the Russian foil. Last week, the European Commission imposed provisional custom duties of 12.2%, which will be valid during the entire process of the investigation. If at the end of the proceedings the dumping component in the prices of the Russian foil producers is proven, then the custom duty will be raised up to 34%. In such circumstances, “RUSAL” may restructure its logistics and send to Europe the products through the Armenian “ARMENAL” enterprise.

The situation with the custom fess and supplies to Europe, Sergey Goryachev, RUSAL’s packaging business director, has discussed with the RUSARMINFO agency.

According to him, the imposition of custom duties, won’t make significant changes in the structure of product sales of “ARMENAL”. The Armenian company will continue to supply products to all its traditional customers. The foil supply of “ARMENAL” goes to the EU market, as well as to the markets of the USA, Canada, Latin America and the Middle East. «The “ARMENAL” supplies are well diversified. The company is most dynamically developing enterprise of our Packaging Division. Over the past 4 years it has increased its production capacity, reaching 33 thousand tons per year. In addition, the main difficulties for “ARMENAL” are the complicated logistics and high electricity prices,» said Sergey Goryachev. Commenting on the custom duty impositions by the European Commission, the director of RUSAL’s packaging business says that the imposed interim measures affect only one of the many products of the company, which is not the most significant portion of the foil business. “ARMENAL” was established in Yerevan in May of 2000 on the basis of Kanaker aluminum plant and is part of the RUSAL’s Packaging Division. It’s considered as one of the largest industrial enterprises in Armenia and the only producer of aluminum foil in the Caucasus and Central Asia.