(AFP, ANKARA) - Turkey completed privatisation of 51-percent of the state-run petroleum distribution company, Petrol Ofisi, with a sale on Friday to a Turkish consortium at a price of $ 1.26 billion (€ 1.35 billion).
The sale was signed here by the head of Turkey's privatisation board, Ugur Bayar, and representatives of the consortium which groups Is Bankasi, a leading bank, and Dogan Holdings, one of the biggest private companies of the country.
Bayar told a press conference that the the price had been paid in full.
The amount is the biggest raised by the Turkish state from privatization.
"This is the biggest amount of money that the treasury has received in one go, except a $1.5-billion foreign borrowing, in the history of the Turkish republic," he said.
The Is Bankasi-Dogan Holdings consortium had made the highest bid for the state-run company in March, snatching the tender out of the hands of three other consortiums.
In April, the privatization board gave the go-ahead for the sale, which was criticised by Turkey's biggest trade union, Turk-Is, on the grounds that privatisation would weaken the interests of employees.
The Petrol Ofisi sale was one of the most important phases of an ambitious privatisation programme which the government says will raise $ 7.6 billion.
Last year, the three-way coalition under Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, the most stable government to head Turkey in recent years, said it was planning to privatise 49 of 74 state enterprises by the end of 2000.
Among the enterprises on the list are the telecommunications company Turk Telekom, 20 percent of which is to be sold by the end of the year, and the huge Iskenderun Iron and Steel works, in southern Turkey.
The privatisation programme is a part of a governmental blueprint of economic reforms submitted to the International Monetary Fund under a stand-by loan of four billion dollars approved in December.
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
