Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Bill on right to free shares in urgent procedure

Belgrade, 6 December 2007

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic stated that according to the Bill on the right to free shares and financial compensation which citizens can exercise in the course of privatisation and which the government adopted today, around four million citizens should get €1,000 worth of shares per person.

Bozidar Djelic at today's press conference

At a press conference following the government session Djelic said that by the end of the year Serbian parliament should adopt the document in urgent procedure.

He specified that the Bill refers to the distribution of shares in the Serbian Oil Industry, Electric Power Industry, Telekom, Nikola Tesla Airport, Jat Airways and medicine factory Galenika.

Djelic explained that employees and pensioners in these public companies will get €200 worth of shares for every year of service, based on the assessed value of each company before privatisation, or a one-off compensation of around €4.000 per person.

He also said he expects that the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU will be signed on January 28, 2008 when the first European summit in 2008 will be held. He added that Slovenia will then hold the EU’s rotating presidency and the chosen date is technically and politically feasible.

Our objective is that the moment the SAA is signed, Serbia applies for the EU candidate status, said Djelic.

He also said that at today’s session the government adopted the Bill on the confirmation of agreement on EU’s financial assistance of €1 billion in the period 2008–2011, adding that the Bill will be forwarded to parliament in urgent procedure and should be adopted by end-year.

The government also adopted the preparation programme of the national EU integration programme, whose aim is that by next summer Serbia prepares a document which EU candidate countries already have, said Djelic.

In other words, six months before getting the candidate status, we will prepare the document which candidate countries begin preparing after they are granted this status, explained the Deputy Prime Minister and added that this will once again prove that considering all its capacities, Serbia is much closer to Europe than can be judged by its formal status in the EU accession process.

Mladjan Dinkic

Serbian Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic said that approximately 150,000 employees and pensioners in public companies will be offered a choice between shares and a compensation of between €500 million and €700 million in all and added that if they chose shares, they will have to pay capital gains tax.

According to Dinkic, all Serbian citizens who will have come of legal age by December 31 this year and who registered as Serbian citizens prior to June 30, 2007, will get an equal amount of shares regardless of their age and years of service.

Dinkic noted that the right to sell shares at the stock market citizens will acquire within six months after the market price is determined, that is, after the company is privatised and by 2010 at the latest.

In order to be given shares, citizens will register through the Serbian Privatisation Agency in the course of 2008, stressed the Minister and added that they will not pay income taxes or any costs of the first sale of shares at the market.

The proposed public company privatisation model will speed up reforms in Serbia and help to attract $6 billion in foreign direct investment annually.

Dinkic added it will not be allowed to concede or transfer shares to third persons before they are sold at the stock market and concluded that all unions, apart from employees in the Serbian Oil Industry, have agreed to the free distribution of shares.