Vesna Dzinic, left, and Mladjan Dinkic at today's press conference
Dinkic said at a press conference at the Serbian government that the Agency for Privatisation will have an obligation to submit data on the buyer to the Directorate for Prevention of Money Laundering, the Serbian Ministry of Interior and the Tax Administration in order to check if the buyer is "clean".
Also, a provision will be introduced that those sentenced for criminal acts and those under investigation who will be prohibited from taking part in the privatisation process.
However, he warned that there will be no major effects if the law on confiscation of property obtained through corruption is not adopted. Also, there will be provisions securing better protection of employees.
The buyer will be obliged to start paying minimum wages and contributions three months from the purchase of the company at the latest. Workers in companies in restructuring will have to get part of proceeds from the sale of the company.
He said that situation concerning privatisation is better and that the interest of investors is growing. The example for that is that many bidders have applied for the purchase of IMT tractors manufacturer (11) and IMR motors factory (4), although there were no interested buyers before.
Dinkic said that tender documentation for the purchase of Robne Kuce (RK) Beograd department store chain has been purchased by 11 potential buyers and that the deadline for applying is October 5.
He added that all print media published an invitation today to former employees to apply for calculation of the years of service so that they could be recompensed after the sale of RK Beograd. The deadline for applying is October 15.
Dinkic said that this will be the first time that employees of a bankrupt company will be recompensed, but only on condition that the selling price is larger than debts.
Director of the Privatisation Agency Vesna Dzinic said that forced liquidation will be introduced for all those companies whose sale was unsuccessful three times. In that way, 300 socially-owned companies would be put into liquidation.
Dzinic said that since May 15, when the new government was formed, 93 companies have been privatised and €252 million pulled in.