DUSHANBE, June 17, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Operations at Dushanbe cement plant were suspended yesterday following stoppage of gas supplies, Asia-Plus has learned from Ms. Fazilat Safarova, the deputy director of state unity enterprise Tojiksement (Dushanbe cement plant). “We have been forced to ask more than 1,000 workers to take unpaid vacations,” said Safarova, “The Tojiksement’s administration has applied to the government with solicitation to take into account the poor state of Tojiksement under conditions of the global financial and economic crisis and help resume gas supplies to the Dushanbe cement plant as soon as possible.” According to her, Tojiksement now owes more than 2 million US dollars to open joint-stock company (OJSC) Tojiktransgaz (Tajik state natural-gas distributor).  “Tojiksement is unable to settle the debt at this time, however the issue is expected to be solved in the near future at time,” Safarova said, noting that the plant is currently producing cement for a number of facilities of the nationwide significance such as the Roghun as well as Sangtuda-1 and Sangtuda-2 power plants. She added that many local enterprises, including the Roghun power plant, owed considerable funds to Tojiksement. We will recall that Uzbekistan halved natural-gas shipments to Tajikistan on June 15 due to the roughly $17 million in arrears that Tojiktransgaz now owes to Uzbekistan.  The Tojiktransgaz officials say that if before June 15, Tajikistan had received 12,000 cubic meters of natural gas from Uzbekistan per day, now the country receives only 6,000 cubic meters of Uzbek gas per day and this volume is enough to meet only Tajik Aluminum Company’s (Talco) requirements in gas.