Monopolists Inspired by Devaluation of Manat

«No sensible construction company will ever import expensive products from abroad." So the Chairman of the domestic monopoly on steel smelting and production of rolled metal LLC Baku Steel Company (BSC) Rasim Mammadov reacted to the administrative devaluation of the manat.

According to him, the strong manat did not allowed to influence the prices on the domestic market, as metal imported from other countries (Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Iran), due to timely devaluation of national currencies, was competitive in the market in Azerbaijan. In this he also explains the suspension of BSC exports. "The current devaluation of the manat has radically changed the situation in favor of local producers. If, before the devaluation, the company produced 35,000 tons per month, now the company has plans to raise production to 60,000 tons per month," said Mammadov. This will allow our company to fully meet the domestic market’s need for quality rolled metal and turn back to its previous status of an exporting company.

Note that the wholesale and retail prices for metal in Azerbaijan have always been about 30% more expensive than in neighboring countries. High profitability enabled Ltd. Baku Steel Company to invest in the last two years more than $ 200 million in the reconstruction of a plant with production capacity of 1 million tons per year and bring the cost of production to the world technological standards.

It is noteworthy that in 2014, steel production in Azerbaijan increased by 39% and amounted to an average of 27,233 tons per month. In January of this year, steel smelting fell to 17.7 thousand tons.

At present, BSC is idle due to lack of scrap metal. -----08B