The leader of the diamond industry of Armenia

"Shoghakn" CJSC is known as a first-rate enterprise in diamond industry of Armenia, which comes up with the largest European factories. In "Shoghakn" are made all existent in the world kinds of diamonds cuts for example "Round", "Heart", "Marquis", "Princess", etc.
The expansion of "Shoghakn" started with factory privatization by Lev Levaev- the event that opened new era in diamond industry of Armenia.
Semi ruined "Shoghakn" factory with almost 200 workers in terrible conditions, with lack of raw materials and low supply, following the privatization of 2000 started reforms and development in accordance with agreement signed with The Ministry of State Property of Republic of Armenia and jointly developed programs.
Due to capital investments of the owner of "Shoghakn" and, under the management of General Director Sergey Gasparyan, the factory was equipped with up-to-date machinery and the level of staff's skills started to be raised, in accordance with development program. At the first stage, the quantity of workers came up to 300, 6 thousand carats of diamonds were processed per month. At the second stage the quantity of workers was brought to 600, while the monthly volume of processed diamonds reached 10 thousand carats. At the third stage, by the end of 2002, the quantity of workers became 1200, and the quantity of processed diamonds was 25,000 monthly. The labour discipline had tightened up, workers' motivation had risen. The average wages equaled 250 USD.
In fact, the progress is noticeable - in two years "Shoghakn" CJSC owing to the owners' almost 3 million USD investment, profitable industrial engineering, investing capital into up-to-date technique became the most powerful manufacturing enterprise in diamond industry in Republic of Armenia.
In the past, in Soviet times, there were 2002 workplaces in the factory and monthly output of finished commodity was 12 thousand carats of naturals diamonds which was a record for that time. Today in "Shoghakn" CJSC there are 1200 workers processing 25-30 thousand carats high quality diamonds, which meet a ready sale abroad. The demand for Armenian cut diamonds is evergrowing.
The progressive methods are used to process diamonds. The 90% of workers are young specialists with a high level of proficiency got in this factory. For them are made favourable conditions i.e. they get meal for free, and they have an opportunity to obtain high salary. The payments are being made by the fixed time through the bank on cards, which is generally accepted convenient method.
In comparison with other diamond factories in the Republic of Armenia the advantage of "Shoghakn" is that the owner doesn't have market problems. He personally attends to seles. The production is being exported mainly to Israel. The raw materials are brought from Israel from the diamond-field owned by the owner. That significantly simplifies the work, financial problems, don't occur the market and there are no debts. The mutually beneficial cooperation is being developed with other countries (USA, Japan, India etc.).
Using up-to-date methods of diamond processing allows minimizing in-process losses. The diamond yield is almost 40%. Up to 5 carat gems are being processed now.
In accordance with Armenian - Russian intergovernmental agreement, from the 400-450 thousand carats of rough diamonds intended to import to Armenia from the Russian Federation, in 2003 100-150 thousand planed to process in "Shoghakn" CJSC. That creates 600-700 additional working places. So there are opportunities and conditions that help to develop the enterprise, maintain the high speed of progress and make the factory one of trustworthy large diamond enterprises in the world.