DUSHANBE, November 27, Asia-Plus – Tajik government has put its 9.3 percent stake in open-joint-stock company Qolinhoi Qairoqqum (Carpets of Qairoqqum) at auction, Deputy Industries Minister, Abdukarim Hikmatov, remarked in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, the auction will be held on December 4. “The auction will be held by English version of auction,” Hikmatov said.
In an English auction (also called an Open-outcry auction), the auctioneer begins the auction with the reserve price (lowest acceptable price) and then takes larger and larger bids from the customers until no one will increase the bid. The item is then sold to the highest bidder.
The initial price of the government’s stake has been set at 926,000 somonis (US$273,100).
The government’s stake in the plant is being sold as part of the national program for privatization of large, medium and small enterprises that is expected to have been implemented by the end of 2007.
Hikmatov noted that over the past ten months, Qolinhoi Qairoqqum has produced 5.30 million somonis’ worth of output, which is 1 million somonis fewer than last year. The deputy minister links this to frequent disruptions of electricity and natural-gas supplies. “From August 1 to September 10 the enterprises was not in operation for these reasons,” Hikmatov said. According to him, decrease in production of output has also resulted from the rising cost of gasoline. “It has become unprofitable to import raw materials from Iran, Russia and other countries,” the deputy minister said.
Established in 1960, Qolinhoi Qairoqqum was reorganized into a joint-stock company in the Nineties. The enterprise’s products are realized both inside the republic and imported to other countries. The government owns 9.3 percent of the shares and the enterprise’s staffers assume the 90.7 percent ownership interest in the enterprise, according to the Ministry of Industry.
