http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D89NNT7G0.htm?campaign_id=apn_h
ome_down
Business Week
Associated Press
April 27, 2005
Kosovo's nickel plant up for sale
-The privatization of Feronikeli would be the most
important sell-off of socially owned enterprises, a
term used for enterprises owned by the workers and
managers under a system set up under communist-era
Yugoslavia.
A nickel plant in Kosovo went up for sale Wednesday as
the U.N. mission in Kosovo agreed to give a mining
license to the most successful bidder, the United
Nations said.
Companies have been asked to table bids for Feronikeli
plant in central Kosovo, which was badly damaged
during NATO bombing of Serb forces in this disputed
province in 1999 and is one of the major plants in the
economically depressed province.
The United Nations, which administers the province,
also agreed to provide potential buyers with the
license for exploitation and exploration of the mines,
said Mechtild Henneke, a U.N. spokeswoman.
Final agreement with potential buyers will be reached
sometime in May, officials said.
Kosovo is the poorest region in the Western Balkans
with an annual gross domestic product per capita of
around euro1,000 (US$1,300) and a jobless rate of at
least 50 percent, according to EU figures despite the
fact that is rich in mines and minerals.
The privatization of Feronikeli would be the most
important sell-off of socially owned enterprises, a
term used for enterprises owned by the workers and
managers under a system set up under communist-era
Yugoslavia.
Privatization is also among the most sensitive
economic issues in Kosovo, a disputed province which
was put under U.N. protection in June 1999 following a
NATO air war that pushed Serb forces out of the
province after they cracked down on ethnic Albanians
seeking independence.
The process of privatization is complex, in part
because it is unclear whether Kosovo will become
independent or remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the
successor state of Yugoslavia.
Serbia's authorities have fiercely opposed the process
of privatization.
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