Prime Minister attends opening of "GTB Steel" steel rebar production plant

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the opening of the "GTB Steel" company's steel rebar production plant in Ararat.

The Prime Minister toured the plant and was briefed on the investments made and the production capacities, the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement.

According to the plant's management, the plant's annual productivity is 112,800 tons, with an investment of 31 million dollars. The plant currently employs 240 people, and this number is expected to increase to more than 500 over the next three years.

The final products include steel rebars, pipes, grinding balls, and hot and cold rolled coils. Scrap and sponge iron are used as raw materials in production.

A 40,000 kVA transformer substation, a 110 kV overhead power line, and a new cell at the Ararat 2 station have been constructed.

Initially, the metallurgical plant was being built in Yeraskh, 800 meters from the line of contact. The Ministry of Environmental Protection of Azerbaijan had claimed that the project could pose a risk to the region's environmental safety and potentially pollute the waters of the Araks River. A few days after that statement, on June 14, 2023, Azerbaijan fired at the plant under construction, injuring two Indian citizens involved in the plant’s construction.

On December 14, 2023, the Government of the Republic of Armenia decided to move the factory, and it was subsequently built in the village of Ararat, Ararat region.