Deadline for privatization of enterprises should be extended!

- The privatization of restructuring enterprises cannot be completed by May 31, when the state should stop assisting the firms under the privatization law, so the deadline should be extended, Director of the Privatization Agency -  Ljubomir Subara said on Tuesday.

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- If there is no extension of the deadline stipulated by the privatization law, we will have a financial collapse measured with billions of dinars -  Subara said at a meeting of the Serbian parliament's committee on economy, presenting the agency's results.

Subara said that the deadline needs to be moved forward so as to find buyers for the enterprises.

Not a single enterprise has been privatized within the deadline as nothing changed in relation to that from August last year to January this year, he noted.

POOR INTEREST IN PRIVATIZATION OF RESTRUCTURING ENTERPRISES

A total of around 1,700 companies voiced interest in the privatization of restructuring enterprises after the Privatization Agency issued the call, but only 100, or less than 15 percent, are serious, realistic offers, Director of the Agency Ljubomir Subara said on Tuesday.

There are 546 restructuring enterprises, plus around 200 subsidiaries, together with 512 enterprises that are due to go bankrupt, so around 1,060 companies now fall within the agency's competence, Subara said at a meeting of the Serbian parliament's committee on economy.

Subara said that some foreign companies expressed interest in the privatization of some domestic enterprises, but after the close of the public call for offers, so they were rejected, but the Agency intends to conduct talks with them.

The concept of privatization applied by the Agency will have to change, and privatization models need to be reformed so that there is no need for terminating bad sale contracts for some enterprises, as that was a trigger for numerous lawsuits against the Privatization Agency, Subara said.

The committee adopted the report on the Privatization Agency's work for the last three months of the previous year and January 2015.

(Telegraf.rs / Tanjug)