PRISTINA (AP)--Authorities in Kosovo put the province's biggest hotel and brewery up for sale Thursday hoping to boost productivity in the economically depressed province.
The Kosovo Trust Agency, a U.N.-run entity guiding privatization in the province, gave interested investors four months to bid for the Grand Hotel Pristina and Peja Brewery. The agency advertised the companies for sale on its Web site.
Authorities are eager to sell assets and companies to open investment opportunities and create jobs in the impoverished province.
Privatization is among the most sensitive issues in Kosovo, which was placed under U.N. administration in 1999 following NATO air strikes that ended a Serb crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
The privatization process is complicated by the uncertainty over whether Kosovo will become independent or remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the successor state of Yugoslavia. Serbia's authorities have fiercely opposed the privatizations.
The Kosovo Trust Agency, the U.N. entity responsible for privatizing the enterprises and putting them on a solid legal footing, wants private entrepreneurs to assume the risk of modernizing the industries. The companies are inefficient and dilapidated after years of neglect.
Earlier this year, the U.N. mission set new rules for the privatization process. Under those rules, the agency has the right to sell and determine the new owners of the companies.
The agency hopes the new powers will avert concerns from investors concerned that a change in the political landscape would rob them of their assets.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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9 comments:
liars and theives, who built the Grand Hotel??? who pu the moeny up for it??? was it albo sheephearders?? i think not.
Quit with your racist comments.
UNMIK tried to do this in 2000, but there wasn't consensus about determining the fate of 'socially owned property' at that time. Lots of piecemeal attempts came to nothing but a headache for everyone involved. I'm happy that they've finally got around to putting these on the open market after years of procrastination; the more stuff that's out the hands of UNMIK's incompetent bureaucrats the better for Kosovo.
And who's to say that Serb capital won't find it's way into blind bids from Albanian partnerships? After all, buying a stake in Kosovo is the only way the Serb government's going to keep it's finger in the pie.
everybody is welcome to bid for Kosova's SOE. we're open for business.
first poster, KTA is not stealing it, just leasing it for 99 years - the title is kinda misleading. after that you might me able to make your case and get it back or you can even bid now and make money immediately.
1.
These companies are being sold, but the money is going nowhere. It will be stored safely until all the legal issues are solved. Therefore, if, I repeat if, the Serbian government can prove in a court of law that it was the owner of Grand Hotel, or for that matter of any company that is being privatised, then they will receive all the money from the sale of the company.
2.
If these companies are not privatised now, they value will only go down and eventually they will be declared bankrupt. Hence, privatisation is a very good thing.
3.
The money for the vast majority of these companies was gathered by the Kosovar workers, i.e. people who worked in them -- be it a Kosovar Albanian or Kosovar Serb. This was the unique socialist system in the former Yugoslavia whereby the workers owned the companies, not the government.
4.
It is a fact that Serbs hate to see Kosova progress, no one can deny this. It is for this reason that people like the first poster made the openly racist remarks. Needless to say, it is clear that he knows nothing about the legal structure behind the companies that are being privatised. The father of the "modern" Serb nation, i.e. Slobodan Milosevic has told him that Albanians do not, and can not own anything in Kosova.
5.
The privatisation continues very successfully, whether Serbs like it or not.
6.
Finally, now that the Serbs can not build Grand Hotels for us, let us see what "the Albanian sheephearders" can do for themselves. Since the Serb authorities were kicked out, I repeat thrown out of Kosova, Prishtina International Airport has been turned into one of the largest and the busiest airports in the region, soon the construction of highways connecting north and south, east and west of the country will start, the Fushë Kosovë railway terminal has been turned into the most modern railway cargo terminal in the region... the list is endless. Interesting, very interesting, let us see what "the Albanian sheephearders" can do for themselves without being tortured, killed and raped by the Serb police and army.
racist?? the truth hurts.
hence the word "socially owned enterprises".......nobody mentioned the word "state owned"....
it is rather obvious though that Kosova, even when it is in an international limbo brought upon by the undefined status, is still developing well and construction is booming....
An excessive legalism is clouding this discussion; Kosovo's eventual severing from S&M will be a political decision around which the legal rules will bend. And thus are international law and its domestic follow ons made!
Domestically-speaking, what's the chance of any future government of an independent Kosovo - in control of these assets - facilitating an open process of discovery concerning the actual ownership of SOEs? They have absolutely nothing to gain from doing this.
An "excessive legalism" is clearly inconvenient to the KLA & NATO Nazi gangsters since genocide & child rape are, under all legal systems, actually illegal.
In fact, as the name Kosovo Trust implies, these properties are held in trust & it is a criminal act to fence them.
Hmmm am I sensing another desperate Serb in the blogger above supposedly called Neil? The law punishes identity theft. Anyway they will be bought by another Albanian company just like the othe objects that have been sold before. Keep up the good work.
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