DUSHANBE, August 27, 2010, Asia-Plus — Tojikcement (Dushanbe cement plant) and joint-stock company Naftrason (oil products) have been removed from the list of enterprises subject to restructuring and privatization, Azzatullo Ghulomov, the head of the department for restructuring and bankruptcy procedures within the State Committee for Investments and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest), told Asia-Plus Friday afternoon.
According to him, Tojikcement has been removed from the list because it is Tajikistan’s largest cement producer and it produces cement for construction of the strategic facilities of the country.
We will recall that the project for restructuring Tojikcement was endorsed in 2006 already. Tojikcement is now joint-stock company and the state assumes the 100 percent ownership interest in the company.
“GosKomInvest also considers it necessary to remove joint-stock companies Tamokhush and Khimzavod (chemicals plant in Yovon) from the list of the strategic plan for restructuring of especially large enterprises as well,” Ghulomov said, noting that they have already submitted their proposal for consideration to the government.
In the meantime, the process of restructuring of joint-stock company Tojiktransgaz (Tajik natural-gas distributor) is nearing completion; some 90 percent of work has been done and the project for privatization of the company will be prepared until 2012.
“Problems have arisen regarding Barqi Tojik power holding (Tajik electricity supplier), though the plan of the project for restructuring the holding was approved last year already,” said the GosKomInvest official, “Barqi Tojik has delayed the process of implementation of the plan for some obscure reason, and we had to apply to the president in early August, asking to speed up the process and only after that the process got off the ground.”
Tojikkhimprom was the first enterprise that was restructured in 2006 and the process of turning it into joint-stock company with further privatization ended in 2007. The enterprise was privatized by the Mirumir Ltd company, registered on offshore British Virgin Islands.
The process of restructuring of the national air carrier, Tajik Air, was completed in 2008. As a result of restructuring, Tajik Air that was an absolute monopoly in Tajikistan’s air transport was split up into seven separate companies.
Under the government’s decree on the strategic plan of privatization of medium-sized and large enterprises and restructuring of objects of natural monopolies and especially large enterprises in 2008-2012, 35 large enterprises are subject to restructuring. Among them are Tojiktransgaz, Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO), Barqi Tojik, Tajik Railways and others.
Ghulomov says appropriate documents for restructuring of TALCO have already been prepared but only the government will make decision on restructuring and privatization of the aluminum smelter.
