Last year the RA Government and the Sitronics Armenia Company announced the creation of a free economic zone at the Mars plant. Sitronics Armenia is a subsidiary company of the Russia-based Sitronics Company.

Vache Kirakosyan, Head of the IT Department, RA Ministry of Economy, informed NEWS.am that the Ministry and the company continue working on the development program at the Mars plant and Mergelyan Institute. “When we finish elaborating the program and experience shows the program is viable, we will discuss the issue of creating a free zone,” Kirakosyan said. He pointed out that the main aim is to create conditions for technological business development.

However, the question is: what is the future of the territories leased at the Mars plant? Specifically, the head office of the Star store chain, as well as a bakery, currently occupies the premises. No decision on which of the premises will form part of the free economic zone has yet been made. “Not all the entities will necessarily form part of the zone. If it is a technological entity, like Pharmatech, it is most likely to be included. Other enterprises will be transferred or will not form part of the free economic zone,” Kirakosyan said.

Sitronics Armenia Director General Armen Khachatryan also thinks that storehouses cannot be located in the free economic zone. However, he said, the borders of the zone have not yet been determined.

Under an agreement signed in 2002, a number of Armenian companies were transferred to Russia against Armenia’s U.S. $93m national debt to Russia. The following companies were transferred to Russia: Mars CJSC (estimated at U.S. $56.29m), Yerevan Research Institute of Mathematical Machines (U.S. $2.75m), Yerevan Research Institute of Automated Control Systems (U.S. $3.37m), Yerevan Research Institute of Materials Science (U.S. $0.35m) and Hrazdan heat and power plant (U.S. $31m).