PARLIAMENT DISCUSSED LAW ON PRIVATISATION OF CROATIAN TELEKOM

ZAGREB, July 18 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament on Wednesday evening started a discussion on amendments to a law on the privatisation of Croatian Telekom (HT), which would enable the sale of the HT shares after which a public bid for the HT shares would be conducted. The government did everything to conduct the public bid, however, this was not possible because stock prices dropped on the world market and not a single successful public bid for telecommunication companies was conducted on world stock markets over the past nine months, Croatian Economy Minister Goranko Fizulic said. Due to a poor situation on world's stock markets, the government decided to sell a part of HT to Deutsche Telekom first and then announce the public bid, Fizulic said. In his opinion, considering the circumstances on the market the government got a good price because Deutsche Telekom offered US$425 million for 16 percent of the HT shares while a year and a half ago 35 percent of the HT shares were sold for US$850 million. He stressed it was impossible to give seven percent of the HT shares to Homeland War soldiers and employees before the public bid, therefore the Minister proposed the establishment of a fund for the HT shares. The government wishes to implement the public bid as soon as possible, possibly this autumn, not to fill the budget, but to revive the market capital, the minister said. (hina) it sb