| Croatian Shipyards on Sale |
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13.10.2008 In a meeting last weekend, Deputy PM Damir Polancec and unions agreed on several details connected to the privatization of Croatian shipyards. The tender documentation draft version was agreed for all shipyards but Pula Uljanik. Croatia plans to publish international tenders for the sale of its ailing shipbuilding industry in the second half of November and complete the sale during 2009, a government source said on Friday, reports Reuters. Croatia has six shipyards, including 3 Maj, five of which have been loss-making for years. Their restructuring is a key requirement for advancing Zagreb’s European Union accession talks, which Croatia hopes to wrap up by the end of the next year. “The shipyards are producing losses because they are not competitive. Therefore, technological overhaul of all shipyards is inevitable, and this costs a lot,” the source said. The government plans to sell each shipyard, excluding Uljanik, in the northern Adriatic town of Pula, for a token 1 kuna ($0.188) but buyers will be required to assume some debt. The source said this was not expected to total more than 10%. “It would probably mean that 90% of the obligations, or kuna8-10bn, will have to be paid by the state,” the source said, adding the government expected solid interest in the tenders. (Lloyds List, Bloomberg, Poslovni dnevnik, Vecernji list) |
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