Finance minister says Russia may sell stakes in state-controlled companies
RIA-Novosti
Moscow, 29 September: Next year Russia may sell some government-owned stakes in individual companies in order to raise funds for the state budget, while in the longer term it will continue with privatization and be putting large stakes in big state-owned companies on the market, First Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin told journalists on Tuesday (29 September) on the fringes of the Russia Calling forum.
According to him, a working group led by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov "is looking for assets which, with the market taken into account, can be sold now and not cheaply".
In the longer term, three or more years, the government will be selling assets acquired during the crisis as part of state support for the banking and real sectors.
According to Kudrin, this might include the VTB bank and oil companies as well as companies in other industries such as telecommunications and aviation.
The current task of state corporations and large holding companies is to restructure problem enterprises. Once they have done that, the government will be selling large stakes in them. "Our strategic task three or more years down the line is to sell large stakes in big companies and holding companies," Kudrin summed up.
(According to Interfax news agency, Kudrin predicted that Russia would emerge from the crisis within three to four years, while ITAR-TASS quoted him as saying that this would happen as a result of growth in machine-building, construction, processing and service industries. In a separate report, ITAR-TASS quoted Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina as saying that among the state-owned companies Russia was considering partly privatizing were the petroleum maritime shipping company Sovkomflot and the agricultural machinery supplier Rosagrolizing. She added that privatization of the oil and gas company Rosneft was not being considered at present. (Interfax news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1311 gmt 29 Sep 09; ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1303 and 1322 gmt 29 Sep 09)).
