English

Cabinet to come up with 2012 privatization list next week

 

The Council of Ministers is to submit to Alyaksandr Lukashenka next week a list of companies in which the government plans to sell stakes to the amount of $2.5 billion this year, Deputy Prime Minister Syarhey Rumas said at the State Property Committee`s board meeting on February 3.

He refused to name companies that could be placed on the list, noting that it was not improbable that “oil transport enterprises” would be among them.

Governmental agencies should work harder under the national privatization program, said Mr. Rumas. The government last year sold stakes in 34 companies, seven companies more than in 2010, but they still accounted for only 19 percent of all companies put on the 2011 privatization list, according to him.

This year the State Property Committee faces an “ambitious task” of selling government-owned stakes in 133 enterprises, including 83 remaining from the last year, he said. They mostly account for ailing companies, and it is necessary to develop early efficient mechanisms of finding potential buyers to meet the privatization target for 2012, said the vice premier.

There is also every opportunity for the Minsk Sparkling Wines Plant to successfully sell its shares to investors in the initial public offering, he said. “Its outcome should provide an impetus for the development of the securities market and the emergence of a group of property owners among the population.”

Mr. Rumas emphasized the need for close cooperation with businesspeople, who he suggested could put former military quarters into commercial use. // BelaPAN