A call to privatise around 80 companies under restructuring will be published by the end of this month, when their protection from creditor claims will cease, with 17 companies to be included in the announced extended protection package, Serbian Minister of Economy Zeljko Sertic said on Thursday.
Companies under restructuring that embark on the privatisation process will be protected from creditors until the end of October – practically, within the legal deadlines and until a third call is made pursuant to the privatisation law, Sertic told Tanjug.
For companies for which there is no call to privatise them or no buyer is found after a call has been published, the government will make it possible to find new buyers through bankruptcy proceedings, the minister said.
Forty out of the 144 companies under restructuring have undergone bankruptcy proceedings, while seven are located in the territory of Kosovo-Metohija and will be decided upon in line with the Brussels Agreement.
The Ministry of Economy is preparing an action plan with criteria for selecting from among 97 companies a group of 17 firms for which the privatisation deadline will be extended by up to a year, on which an agreement has been reached with the IMF, he said.
Those will be companies with particular impact on the economic life or a large number of employees, Sertic said.
Privatisation of 17 companies on special criteria
The Serbian Ministry of Economy is preparing an action plan for the privatisation of 17 companies in the restructuring process according to special criteria so as to ensure protection from collection of dues by creditors in the next year so that they could be able to prepare for privatisation, Serbian Minister of Economy Zeljko Sertic told Tanjug on Thursday.
He underscored that this measure will apply to companies that have special importance for Serbia’s economic life.
The government will propose amendments to the Law on Privatisation and ask the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia for support in view of changing the deadline for protection of the companies.
At the time of the adoption of the Law on Privatisation in August 2014, 144 companies were in the restructuring process, Sertic said.
Of 144 companies, 40 went bankrupt, seven more will be privatised in a special procedure pursuant to the Brussels agreement since they are located in Kosovo-Metohija, which leaves 97 more companies for which the protection from creditor collection is due to expire on May 31, the minister said.
Source; SerbGov
