Government to make decision about continuation of privatization of Mining Smelter Basin "Bor" on July 5

- At the yesterday's meeting (July 3, 2007), the Board for supervision and realization of action plan for restructuring and privatization of Mining Smelter Basin (RTB) "Bor" decided that the final decision about the method for continuation of privatization of that Basin should be given by the Government at the meeting schedulled for July 4, 2007 - Privatization Agency announced.

According to the announcement, all aspects of previous course of privatization, from the legal-economic issues to the issues of environment protection in Bor, have been taken in consideration. The Board is of opinion that the Minister of Economy and Regional Development, as well as President of the Board, should submit report on previous course of privatization of RTB "Bor" to the Government of Republic of Serbia and to suggest the best way for finishing the process.

Let us remind that, after the Privatization Agency broke the contract with Romanian company "Cuprom" (which submitted the best offer on the tender), because it was unable to provide bank's guarantee, Minister of Economy at that time, Predrag Bubalo, announced announcement of new tender. However, since the new Government was formed in the meantime, new Minister of Economy, Mlađan Dinkić, said that the Ministry would negotiate with the second-ranked bidder on the tender, consortium of London's investment fund ORN and Cypriot company "East Point", of which owner is Zoran Drakulić.

However, it seems that that statement of the new Minister was a bit premature, because the Govenment of Serbia received a letter from another participant in the tender - Russian "Bazični element", owned by financial magnate Oleg Deripaska who reminded to the statement of the previous minister and announced that that concern was also interested in privatization of RTB Bor.