BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

19/05/2008

Belarus eyes $500 mln for phone operator sale

KIEV, May 19 (Reuters) - Belarus hopes to net at least $500 million in selling state mobile phone operator BeST, with Turkish company Turkcell considered the most likely candidate to buy it, the country's economy minister said on Monday.

Turkcell TCELL.IS has expressed interest in buying 80 percent of BeST, with the purchase taking place over time.

"I think we are talking here about a sum no lower than half a billion (dollars)," Nikolai Zaichenko told reporters on the sidelines of the EBRD's annual meeting.

"We are neither hurrying nor slowing down any deal. This is part of our plans. But I cannot give you a concrete date."

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko first mooted the possibility of fetching $500 million from the sale last year.

Russian mobile operator MTS (MBT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has also expressed interest in the Belarussian firm -- Belarus's third largest mobile operator with three percent of the market.

Lukashenko, in power since 1994, maintains a large state sector and a high degree of central control over economic decision-making.

But he and government ministers have said in the past year that they want to proceed with targeted privatisation in specific sectors. Zaichenko said Belarus could sell a controlling interest in the Minsk automobile plant -- a truck producer. Such a deal, he said, could not be ruled out, but he offered no details on how big a share might be put on offer.

Russian truck plant KamAZ has expressed an interest in the Minsk plant. And Lukashenko's press service said the president had discussed the plant's future at a meeting with Russian aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska.

But the president's press service said it was not certain that any such deal could be struck.

"It is a fundamental, conceptual notion that we must unite our efforts," it quoted Lukashenko as saying. "I am prepared to make a decision on this if we agree on a common approach and a common view of the future."

The head of the central bank, Pyotr Prokopovich, told Reuters last week that Belarus could cede a controlling share in state bank Belinvest to Germany's Commerzbank AG CBKH.DE within four months and give up control of a second bank, Belpromstroibank.

His deputy, Vasily Matushevsky, said in Kiev on Monday that Belarus was aiming for a high price in the bank selloffs.

"Let me say straight away -- it will be expensive, at least in terms of the deals which have been previously struck on the Belarussian market," he said.

Source:

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSL1933178620080519

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