Ownership of 25% of the Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine, Armenia’s largest industrial company, will be transferred to the Armenian government. The shares will be transferred from the Russia-based ‘Industrial Company’, which owns 60% of the Combine.

That 25% of the shares would be transferred to the Government of Armenia appeared in technical documents published by the government on Thursday. 

There has been no official statement on the matter. The contract is expected to be signed within the next ten days.

‘Industrial Company’ is a joint-stock company registered in Moscow, Civilnet reports. Other prominent shareholders in the company include Mikhail Zurabov, the former Minister of Health and Social Development of Russia and Hayk Hakobyan, the brother of former Syunik governor and close ally of opposition leader Robert Kocharyan, Vahe Hakobyan.

The Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine, a copper and molybdenum processing plant, is one of the largest employers in Armenia’s southern province of Syunik and has roughly 4,500 employees. 

In the run-up to the 2021 snap parliamentary elections, the Combine was engulfed in controversy with officials accusing officials at the plant of pressuring employees to vote for the opposition Armenia Alliance coalition and preventing employees from attending rallies from Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract Party.