State property of about 1bn lei to be privatized

Outcry auctions to sell state-owned shares of 928 million lei in 27 joint stock companies will take place at the Moldova Stock Exchange on June 26-29. In 15 of these companies, the state owns over 51% of the shares, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting Tudor Copaci, director general of the Public Property Agency working under the Ministry of Economy. “A part of the holdings have been auctioned earlier, but could not be sold. But there are also new holdings like those in SA Armo-beton (100%), SA Viorica-Cosmetic (95.852%), SA Farmaco (94.614%), and SA Floare-Carpet (59.486%). These companied will be privatized because they are acutely in need of investments,” said Copaci. Within the same privatization round, an investment contest will be held between June 1 and July 5. There will be sold the movie theaters located in Edinet, Glodeni and Stefan Voda and holdings in three of the nine companies working within the industrial park Tracom: ForjaCom, Bicotra, and Zidarul-SV. The others had been already privatized. A commercial contest will take place in the same period to sell seven common patrimonial complexes, the state-run agricultural companies Flori and Dumbrava-Vest located in Chisinau, the Drugstore No. 419 situated in Balti, and an airplane YAK 40. The initial selling prices of the shares put up for sale repeatedly was diminished by 15-20%. Incomes of 260 million lei were planned to be earned from privatization this year. Property to the value of 41 million lei was sold within the first privatization round held this March.