Radiy Khabirov: Mount Kushtau issue is finally solved

Commenting on the decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to transfer 38.3% of the shares of JSC Bashkir Soda Company to the ownership of Bashkortostan, as well as another 11.7% plus one share to the trust management, the Head of the Republic Radiy Khabirov said that the issue of the Mount Kushtau likely extraction is now finally closed.

"Now we can doubly say that this issue is finally solved because after the implementation of all the decisions of the President of Russia and the registration of documents, we enter into the management of the enterprise," the Head of the Region said. "But even before this moment, at the request of the residents of the republic, we decided to assign Mount Kushtau the status of a protected natural monument. That is, it has already received a protective status. Moreover, we have sent a nomination dossier throughout the territory where the three Shihans (mountains) are located for obtaining the status of a UNESCO geopark. That is, we went even further. We want to impose international protection on this Shihan, give it international status. We have quite successfully passed the first stage of our application consideration in UNESCO and are waiting for the final decision. Ждём окончательного решения. Therefore, we will preserve our Shihans comprehensively and in every possible way."

Answering the question about the dividends from BSC and investments in the company, Radiy Khabirov gave several figures.

"We have developed a program to modernize the company and attract investment. So far, we plan to spend about 5.5 billion rubles on the modernization of the enterprise. If we take into account that in 2019 the company had investments for 2.5 billion rubles, then we are actually doubling them. This is the replacement of outdated equipment and the purchase of new equipment, etc. This is quite a large volume. Even though the company is profitable and efficient, I believe that we will first think about its development. An essential component is to solve the environmental problem. As a rule, it is always quite expensive. And then we will count on the dividends."