President of Belarus will be able to change the rules of privatization and to sell state-owned enterprises directly without any bidding or tender. This provision is contained in the law "On changes and amendments to some laws of the Republic of Belarus and invalidity of some legislative acts of the Republic of Belarus and their specific provisions on the privatization of state property".
On June 30, the law was approved by MPs of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus. It enters into force from January 1, 2011, Belarusians and Market inform.
According to the document, the privatization will be carried out either by selling shares at the bidding or by tender or through the sale of enterprises as property complexes at auction or by tender. The law makes it possible to sell the property, if auction or tender were considered failed because of just one application.
Moreover, the law introduces a new method of privatization, under which the sale of JSC shares will be possible without a tender or auction, but only as a result of trust managing. However, these state shares of JSCs, which arrears on financial obligations equals or exceeds the active part, may be transferred on competitive basis to the subjects of privatization in trust managing with a right to redeem such shares. The right to buy shares in the property at their nominal value at the date of the trust agreement will be obtained by the manager, carried out all the terms of trust managing contract.
The law also eliminates the possibility to redeem leased state property by leasing company and preferential privatization. Now, the enterprises’ employees and persons equaled to them will not be able to buy shares at preferential terms for the money and in exchange for Imushchestvo (Property) vouchers during the process of corporatization. The priority will be given to cash privatization.
However, the Council of Ministers extended the time of voucher privatization through Belarusbank offices till June 30, 2013. The law stipulates transition period to complete it. Preferential sale of shares of JSCs, established before January 1, 2011, will be stopped from January 1, 2014.
According to the authorities, the purpose for these innovations is to increase the attractiveness of the sales to investors. «As practice shows, strategic investors are ready to participate in the company’s statutory fund at least on a parity basis with the state, what is impossible in the presence of such minority shareholders», the director of the State Property Fund, Natalia Zhernosek, stated in the parliament.
On June 30, in the second reading there was also adopted a law on the property, which is only in state ownership, and on kinds of activity, the state has exclusive right to realize.
During the existence of Imushchestvo (Property) vouchers, they were used only by 46% of citizens who received privatization certificates. In November 2008, the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, by his decree № 605 excluded 151 enterprises from the sphere of preferential privatization. The list includes enterprises of Ministries of Industry and Energy, Belneftekhim, Bellegprom and Belbiopharm concerns.
