vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #157 / Business / Reading article...

The largest employer in the northern Primorye city of Dalnegorsk, the ore processing company Dalpolimetal, has announced it will lay off 200 workers out of a staff of 3,000.

Yury Kotlov, deputy general director of Dalpolimetal, said the decision was made because of skyrocketing prices for raw materials and electricity during 1997. This year explosives, for instance, have doubled in cost, and as a result the company suffers big losses. Dalpolimetal will finish this year with losses as well.

At the same time, Kotlov said, the company managed to increase its industrial indices as compared with the previous year, despite the fact that in August of 1997 Dalpolimetal was standing idle because Moscow refused permission to export its product.

The August break cost the company 10 billion rubles ($1.6 million). By the time the company stopped working, there were over 36,000 tons of the lead-zinc concentrate in its warehouses.

After Moscow provided the decree allowing Dalpolimetal to export its precious metals, the company quickly found buyers abroad. The amount of metals stored in warehouses has fallen. There are now only 2,500 tons of the leaden concentrate and 4,000 tons of the zinc, the company estimates. This indicates that the demand for the Dalpolimetal product is stable.

Even with the rising prices, constant threat to be stopped again and forced firing the staff, the company manages to survive.

The Swiss firm Glencore International, Inc., owns 54 percent of Dalpolimetal, while employees own 30 percent.