Montenegro - Media Review – November 13

RTCG

- The Montenegrin government has called on all commercial banks in the country to consider what they could do in terms of lending to troubled aluminium smelter KAP after loan negotiations with Crnogorska Komercijalna Banka (CKB) failed, the head of the Montenegrin Banking Association, Crtomir Mesaric, said. CKB, part of Hungarian OTP Bank, declined earlier this month to lend 49 million euro to the ailing company.

- Montenegrin hydro power plant Piva has produced 762 million kilowatthours of electricity since the beginning of the year, fulfilling its full-year plan 50 days in advance.

- The Montenegrin government should cancel the privatisation of steel mill Zeljezara to UK-based MN Specialty Steels and should take over the management of the company, the trade union at the mill said. The factory suspended production in mid-October while workers are yet to get their September wages.

VIJESTI

- Montenegro is in unofficial talks with the International Monetary Fund on a loan of 150 million to 300 million euro, the central bank's chief economist, Nikola Fabris, told Reuters. Finance Minister Igor Luksic told Vijesti that no talks on such an agreement are in progress with the IMF at the moment and that communication with the global lender will continue once the government prepares a draft for the 2010 budget.

($=0.6717 euro)