No politics behind Roshen factory shutdown, Russian official says
24 January 2017
No political factor was involved in the decision of the Roshen confectionary and candy producer to shut down its factory in Lipetsk, said on Jan. 23 Russian Federations Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, the Interfax news agency reported. “There weren’t any obstacles to the work of Mr. Poroshenko’s factory in Lipetsk, and there certainly wasn’t any political pretext,” she said. In his turn, Lipetsk Oblast Head Oleg Korolev said “an investor will be found immediately and everything will be renewed” if Roshen decides to sell the factory.
On Jan. 20, the Roshen company announced that it’s halting production at its factory in Lipetsk in April for economic and political reasons. Production at the factory has dropped to a third of its 2013 levels, the company reported, citing bans on Roshen imports to Russia, pressure by local governments to forbid the sale of Lipetsk plant products and media attacks on the plant by Russian and Ukrainian mass media.
The owner of Roshen, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, placed his shares of Roshen in a blind trust in January 2016, to be managed by a foreign bank. He said he couldn’t sell the plant because it was placed under arrest as part of a criminal investigation.
Zenon Zawada: It’s about time the Lipetsk plant is shutting down (and possibly sold) and it’s unfortunate that this took so long. The Lipetsk plant had long been a source of scandal surrounding President Poroshenko, given that his company was operating a plant that was paying tax revenue to the Russian government. This was an extremely compromising position for the president considering his demands for renewing Western sanctions against Russia, as well as the ongoing war in Donbas.
Matviyenko’s claim is plausible that there was no political pressure on Roshen since the plant’s functioning enormously bolstered the Russian government’s attack campaign to discredit Poroshenko in the eyes of the public, particularly in Ukraine. Indeed the plant’s functioning serves the Russian government better than its closure.
