20 June 2014
On 20 June, CEOs of PJSC "AZOVSTAL IRON & STEEL WORKS" and PJSC "ILYICH IRON & STEEL WORKS OF MARIUPOL" presented peace plan announced by Petro Poroshenko a day earlier at the meeting attended by the President of Ukraine and leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions to the labour collectives. Enver Tskitishvili and Yuri Zinchenko welcome initiatives of the President for peaceful settlement of the conflict at Donbass and emphasize that head of the state is ready for extensive dialogue with local citizens.
The peaceful plan of the President is focused on safety of all the citizens irrespective of convictions, disarmament, granting ample powers to Donbass in budget and self-administration, pre-term local elections, preservation of Russian language status, program on Donbass economic recovery and development and generating employment. CEOs of metallurgical enterprises expressed confidence that proposed plan of political conflict settlement and the way out from armed civil opposition meet the interests of Donbass citizens.
Jointly with labour collectives, Yuri Zinchenko and Enver Tskitishvili, CEOs of the enterprises, Vadim Boichenko, Director for Human Resources and Social Issues of PJSC "ILYICH IRON & STEEL WORKS OF MARIUPOL" endorsed Yuri Ryzhenkov view, attendee of the meeting with the President, about necessity of voluntary disarmament in all regions, without any exception.
Yuri Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest Group:
- We welcome voluntary disarmament of all the members of illegal military groups announced by the President of Ukraine. This is of particular importance for Donbass that it refers not only to the armed groups here, at the South-East, but also refers to so called community defense volunteer squads in all parts of Ukraine, in all the regions, including Kyiv.
Yuri Zinchenko, Director General of "ILYICH IRON & STEEL WORKS OF MARIUPOL":
- The President made it clear that he is ready for dialogue with Donbass citizens, so, on 19 June, he arranged panel discussion with authority, business and community leaders from Luhansk and Donbass regions. In order to end with war and bring about peace, first and foremost, leaders of the city communities, public representatives and legitimate authorities will be engaged in the negotiations. It is also possible to negotiate with leaders of self-declared republics but only if they put down arms. It is impossible to conduct a dialog driving APC, as Rinat Akhmetov told. Today, everyone understands that peace is the working places, stable employment and salary. The metallurgists crusade for peace and order.
Enver Tskitishvili, Director General of PJSC "ILYICH IRON & STEEL WORKS OF MARIUPOL":
- The President of Ukraine endorsed the initiative on patrolling of the city streets with the involvement of local citizens. Metinvest is the first company that proposed such format and deployed it in Mariupol, when the employees of two enterprises together with militia protect the public order. We are planning further to continue successful practice of joint patrolling. The President is ready to guarantee safety to all the Donbass citizens and preserve Russian language status in the region as well. We shall come to the idea that nationalism of whatever nature is to be under the ban of society and law. The state shall protect interests of any Ukrainian, whatever language he/she speaks.
Vadim Boichenko, Director for Human Resources and Social Issues of PJSC "ILYICH IRON & STEEL WORKS OF MARIUPOL":
- Summarizing panel discussions, the President of Ukraine entrusted to include one more item in his plan. It concerns recovery of houses and other objects destroyed during military activities at the expense of share interest of the state and business. Nowadays, Metinvest actively assists forced migrants in accommodation at new place. We will help those people to come home after peace establishment. In addition, both metallurgical enterprises will participate in recovery of destroyed buildings of the municipal militia department and mayor's office. Today we are making rounds of the citizens, whose houses were engaged in the anti-terroristic operation zone on 13 June, to determine caused losses and provide assistance to the citizens to conduct repairs.
- For editors:
PJSC "AZOVSTAL IRON & STEEL WORKS" is a modern high-technology enterprise manufacturing wide range of steel products: slabs, bars, shapes, railway rails, rail fasteners, square billets, plates and products of metallurgical slag.
Production capacities of the enterprise allow to produce annually over 5.5 million tons of iron, over 6.2 million tons of steel (aim is to achieve 7 million tons of steel per year) and over 4.4 million tons of rolled products. Design capacities for rail fasteners production is 285 thousand tons per year, grinding balls 170 thousand tons per year.Metinvest is a vertically integrated mining and metallurgical group of companies that manages assets in each segment of production chain, from extraction of iron ore raw materials and coal, as well as coke production up to manufacture of steel semi-finished and finished products, pipes and coils and also manufacture of other high-value-added products. The Group incorporates mining and metallurgical enterprises located in Ukraine, Europe and USA and has sales network covering all global key markets. Metinvest Group incorporates Metallurgical and Mining Divisions. According to the strategic vision of Group it is aimed to become the leading European vertically integrated steel manufacturer with sustained growth and profitability, despite the cyclical nature of markets, and provide investment yield above the industry standards. For the first nine months ended 30 September 2013, the Group received a US $ 9.8 billion in revenue, EBITDA profitability was 18%.
The key shareholders of METINVEST B.V. (Holding Company of Metinvest Group) are SCM Group (71.25%) and SMART Group (23.75%) that take part in the Group administration on a partnership basis.
"METINVEST HOLDING" LLC is the managing company of Metinvest Group.
Additional information is available at site: www.metinvestholding.com