YEREVAN, OCTOBER 21, NOYAN TAPAN. It is envisaged to pass Mars plant, which has been transferred as property to Russia, to Sitronix company (Russia) for management. Announcing this at a press conference in Yerevan, Russian Minister of Transport Igor Levitin said that according to experts, it is not economically profitable to build an oil refinery with a capacity of over 5 million tons in Armenia, but the issue will be discussed again after solving the export problem. It was mentioned that an Armenian-Russian joint venture - a bitumen producing plant will be built in Armenia in 2009 under a 20 million dollar investment project. The plant will produce 45-50 thousand tons of bitumen a year, with two thirds of its production to be sold in Armenia. Making a speech at the opening ceremony of the 10th jubilee sitting of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission in Yerevan, I. Levitin underlined that economic cooperation of the two countries is continuing to develop. He did not rule out that the bilateral commodity turnover may reach 1 billion dollars this year. In his words, "solutions have been found to the controversial problems whuch caused heated debates a few years ago: the use of the facilities owned by Russia, as well as transport, technological, energy and other problems. Good perspectives have been worked out regarding the development of relations between the central banks of our countries". Following the commission's sitting, a joint press conference was held, during which Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsian said that the peculiarity of the sitting was that the solutions to all the problems in the energy sector were stipulated, and cooperation in the telecommunication sector will expand.

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