YEREVAN. – A protest is taking place Monday outside the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, and the protesters demand not to pass the bill on imposing an AMD 14,000 duty on imported cement.

The demonstrators consider the adoption of such law to be unlawful. They note that levying duty from the import of cement will give a monopoly position to one company—Ararat Cement Factory belonging to Prosperous Armenia Party Chairman and tycoon MP Gagik Tsarukyan—and this will lead to the expulsion of numerous companies working in this domain.

Tsarukyan, in turn, had stated that a duty needs to be imposed not only on imported cement, but also on imported clinker—that is, cement raw material. Otherwise, his company also will start bringing clinker from abroad and produce cement from it, since it will be cheaper, but as a result, more than 1,000 employees of Ararat Cement Factory will become unemployed.

The Armenian government notes that this duty will be levied so that local production of cement will not be wiped out. But no duty will be imposed on clinker.