"Companies in restructuring owe EUR 1.5bn"

Serbian companies that are undergoing the process of restructuring owe EUR 1.5 billion to state creditors alone, World Bank official Duško Vasiljević has said.

Izvor: Tanjug

Wednesday, 16.04.2014.

10:47

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"Companies in restructuring owe EUR 1.5bn"

"That applies to debts to the Tax Administration in unpaid taxes and contributions, debts to the Development Fund, as well as debts to public companies for unpaid electricity, gas, water and public utility services," Vasiljević told Tanjug after a conference on salvaging public enterprises, organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Business Info Group.

The 153 companies in restructuring should not be expected to go bankrupt as early as in May, because it is not an automatized process, he said.

"In some of those companies, the state is the biggest creditor, so the decisions to initiate bankruptcy proceedings can be postponed there by political decisions. However, nearly all of those companies have commercial creditors, whom the government cannot put pressure on, so there is always a risk of bankruptcy proceedings being initiated in an uncontrolled way," Vasiljević said.

For that very reason, the government must make sure that workers get their redundancy pays before the companies go bankrupt, he said.

Asked what solution the World Bank would be pleased with, Vasiljević responded that the solution would be to assess which of the companies can be profitable and make another attempt at privatizing them, while others should go into regulated bankruptcy proceedings in which the workers would be given redundancy pays.

"At the same time, the state must design active labor policy measures to provide employment to some of the workers who would lose their jobs," he said.

Serbia could count on obtaining a World Bank loan as early as in June or July if the bank finds the macroeconomic situation to be satisfactory, Vasiljević said.

However, should there be a need for additional adjustments through a budget review, the loan could realistically become available in September, Vasiljević said.

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