August 9 (SeeNews) - Serbia launched on Thursday a tender for the privatisation of agricultural company Poljoprivredna Korporacija Beograd (PKB) at a starting price of 104.6 million euro ($121.2 million), the economy ministry said.
The tender is open to legal entities that mainly active in agriculture and trade in agricultural products, the notice posted on the website of the economy ministry reads.
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The deadline for submitting bids is September 10.
PKB subsidiaries EKO-LAB, PKB Agroekonomik and Veterinarska Stanica PKB are also on sale as part of the tender.
The International Monetary Fund resident representative in Serbia, Sebastian Sosa, said last month the Fund is expecting to see a tender for the sale of PKB in the following month. After several unsuccessful attempts to find a strategic investor for the company, the government decided to either launch a tender for the sale of PKB or initiate bankruptcy proceedings to free resources from the budget that can be used for other purposes, Sosa added.
Serbia's government called a public tender for the sale of PKB subsidiaries Poljoprivredna Avijacija, EKO-LAB, PKB Agroekonomik and Veterinarska Stanica in January 2017. However, the government has issued no public announcement on the outcome of the tender.
In February 2017, Serbia's economy minister Goran Knezevic said the government aimed to sell PKB by the end of 2017.
Earlier this year, local media reported that two Serbian companies, MK Group and meat processing group Industrija Mesa Matijevic, were showing interest toward the privatisation of PKB.
($=0.862974 euro)