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Selling the package of shares of the УSviazinvestФ telecommunications holding was in the respective plans during practically all the recent years so inclusion of this particular ob ject in the privatization lists for the year of 2005 does not at all imply taking any final deci sions. Firstly, further privatization is directly connected with completing of the reorganiza tion processes in the said holding, the tariff reform, solving the social loads problems of regional business companies and providing communications for the respective power bodies. Secondly, in view of the growing attractiveness of the telecommunication shares, any urgent sale of the holdingТs securities does not seem to have much sense at all. How ever, there is an opposite (counter) trend here as well. According to the respective estima tions of the RF Ministry of Economic Development, in spite of the fact that this holding owns both the controlling and the blocking packages of shares belonging to the regional wire - communication operators, the necessary operative control over the latter has al ready been lost. Thirdly, serious work over is required by the concrete variant of the planned sale. In 2001 - 2003, the privatization model standardly assumed 25% minus two (2) shares. In 2004, under intensive discussion, inter alia, was the variant of selling the packages of shares of the holdingТs regional companies (at least four [4] inter - regional daughter companies were included in the list for the year of 2004). In the middle of 2004, the Federal Agency for Federal Property Administration (FAFPA) considered three (3) main variants of the sale: 25%, 50% or 75% minus one (1) share. Yet, no one - time sale of the respective packages of shares of the daughter companies (with all the attendant conse quences similar to the УdoubleФ privatization of the oil industry in the 90s, mentioned above) can be excluded. In particular, quite possible is selling 28% of the MGTS shares to the current majority owner of the AFK УSystemФ which practically means that this holding is leaving the Moscow market and that it will inevitably tell on the terms of its capitalization.

The terms of selling the holding will also depend on the quantity of prospective contenders, their relationships with the respective authorities and the intensity of competition between them.

In August 2004, 1325 FPUEs and 556 JSS packages of shares (see Table 1) were in cluded in the basic list of objects to be privatized in the year of 2005. The largest privatiza tion projects of the next year, apart from УSviazinvestФ, may be transforming the УRosspirt promФ FPUE into a joint stock society with the following sale of its shares (200 enterprises, 80% of the Russian market), the УDomodedovo avialinesФ (25% of the shares), the Novo rossyisk and the Tuapse sea freight ports (about 20% of the shares), УRosgosstrakhФ (25% plus 1 share) and others. Further privatization of the УAeroflot - Russian AvialinesФ OJSS (51.2% of the controlling package of shares) is steadily put off from year to year. In 2004, in particular, arguments of the RF Ministry of Transport on the necessity of preliminary regulation of the so called Уfly over moneyФ (that is collection of payments for flying of the foreign air companiesТ planes over the territory of the Russian Federation) were accepted which automatically requires reconsideration of about 100 current agreements in force.

RUSSIAN ECONOMY in trends and outlooks Another problem is financial and leasing contracts in the amount of about 1.5 bln US dol lars which can be cancelled in case of their consequent privatization.

Considerable activation of the privatization process in the recent years was often connected with perspective privatization of the wholesale generating companies (WGC) created during the reorganization process of the УUES of RussiaФ RJSS. According to the statement of V. Khrystenko, Head of the Minpromenergo, made officially known in Novem ber 2004, the nearest hypothetical date to start privatizing the WGCs seems to be the year of 2006 by which time the interested parties (the state, the management of the УUES of RussiaФ RJSS, the УGaspromФ OJSS, the aluminum as well as other groups) are expected to work out certain compromise variants including not only auction sales but possible passing the state WGCs over for private management or privatization through distributing the respective WGC shares among the already existing shareholders of the УUES of Rus siaФ RJSS as well. Reforming of the nuclear energy systems is intended rather for the long - term perspective. The Federal Atomic Energy Agency (the УRosatomФ) does accept the impossibility of attracting adequate investments under the existing legislatively consoli dated ownership model. Accordingly, almost inevitable appears to be first consequent transforming the УRosenergoatomФ FPUE into a corporation with 100% state participation followed then with attraction of private minority shareholders and company managers.

4.1.2. Changes in the normative - legal basis and federal property management The past year of 2004 was marked with adoption of the new normative - legal acts as regulating the respective activities of the said economic societies with the state participa tion in their capital as well as the state unitary enterprises.

Participation in the shareholding and other societies. It is first of all necessary to mention here the Decree of the RF President УOn approving the list of the strategic enter prises and strategic joint stock societiesФ, dated August 4, 2004, No 1009. As such, FPUEs and 549 open joint stock societies (OJSS) were determined in it with different shares of the state in their respective authorized capital11.

It is not to be forgotten, however, that formal approval of such a list requires the re spective norm of the Law УOn privatization of the state and municipal propertyФ, dated De cember 21, 2001, No 178 - FZ. As stipulated in Article 6 of the said Law, in order to practi cally and efficiently implement a single and universal system of the state policies in the sphere of privatization, the RF Government shall present to the RF President for respective approval, proposals on forming the said list of strategic enterprises and including federal state unitary enterprises (FPUEs) whose end products (work, services, etc) are of strategic significance for assuring the defense ability and respective security of the state, protection of the nationТs morality, health, rights and legitimate interests of the citizens of the Russian Federation (hereinafter called as Уstrategic enterprisesФ), open joint stock societies (OJSS) whose shares are in the federal ownership and participation of the Russian Federa tion in their management duly ensures the strategic interests of the state, its defense abil ity and security, protection of the nationТs morality, health, rights and legitimate interests of the citizens of the Russian Federation (hereinafter called as Уstrategic joint stock socie tiesФ)12.

According to the available data of the RF Ministry of Economic Development for July 2004, the original list of the strategic enterprises was first cut down from 3000 to 200 but then it again grew up to 1200 (672 JSS and 528 FPUEs).

Earlier, in the capacity of such enterprises considered were usually those already included in one of the lists approved by the respective Decisions of the RF Government УOn the list of the defense complex enterprises and organizations privatiza tion of which is prohibitedФ, dated July 12, 1996, No 802, and УOn the list of whose products (commodities, services, etc) are of strategic significance for ensuring the national security of the state as fixed in the federal ownership whose shares are not Section 4.

Institutional and Macroeconomic Challenges Similarly, proposals are presented to the RF President as connected with introducing into the respective list of the strategic enterprises and that of the strategic joint stock so cieties of certain changes concerning composition of the FPUEs in the lists of respective strategic enterprises, including their consequent privatization (turning into open joint stock societies), as well as the need and the participation degree of the Russian Federation in the said OJSS (the strategic joint stock societies) and, inter alia, for further privatization of the shares owned by the said joined stock societies.

After decisions on cutting down the participation degree of the state in the manage ment of the said strategic or on excluding of the respective enterprises from the strategic enterprises list have been formally taken by the RF President, these category objects may then be included in the so called privatization of federal property УforecastФ plan (or pro gram).

The Decree of the RF President, No 1514, issued at practically the same time as the said law, established that until the respective lists of the strategic enterprises and of the strategic joint stock societies were approved by the RF President fully in accordance with Article 6 of the Federal Law УOn privatization of the State and Municipal Property", any changes in or amendments to the list of those whose end products (commodities, ser vices, etc) are of strategic significance for ensuring the national security of the state and fixed in the federal ownership whose shares are not subject to any pre - term sale, as ap proved by the RF Government on July 17, 1998, No 784, shall be implemented through the respective RF Government Regulations based on the RF PresidentТs Decrees. However, although the RF Government was duly instructed to present for the approval of the RF President the said lists of the respective strategic enterprises and the strategic joint stock societies before March 1, 2002, this question, like many others, was not solved on the date fixed.

Removal of this sufficiently important gap in the RF legislation took more than two years from the moment the said law came into force. This Decree also permits the RF Gov ernment to include the listed enterprises and the respective OJSSТs packages of shares in the privatization program after the RF President has taken decision on their exclusion from the corresponding lists.13 This document de facto determines the only way to privatize the strategic FPUEs - their transformation into OJSSs 100% shares of which are in the federal ownership. The Decree also contained instruction to the RF Government to provide for in cluding the said enterprises and in the list of the strategic enterprises and organizations which was approved in January 2004for the purposes of efficient legal use of the respec tive bankruptcy law.

Quite noteworthy in this context is also another list of the strategic enterprises and organizations approved by the RF GovernmentТs Instructions No 22 p, dated January 9, 2004. Formal adoption of this document logically follows from Article 190 of the Federal Law УOn insolvency (bankruptcy)Ф. ItТs not at all unnecessary to remind in this connection that practically the whole paragraph 5 (Art. 190 - 196) of the third law on bankruptcy is de voted to regulating bankruptcies of the strategic enterprises and organisations.14 Accord subject for any pre term saleФ, dated July 17, 1998, No 784, (in multiple subsequent versions). At that, neither the criteria nor the principles for including (or excluding) respective enterprises in such or other list were present.

Literal interpretation of the RF PresidentТs Decree leads to the logical conclusion on the appearance of a legal collision here because according to the new 2001 law on privatization, shares of companies and enterprises functioning in the natural monopolies sector, can be included in the said privatization program only on the basis of a special law, as was the case, for example, with adopting the package of laws on restructuring the electrical energy and railway transport industries.

These articles contain legal norms taking the said enterprises outside the confines of the standard procedures applied in case of insolvency of the said economic subjects, raising the requirements level to the bankruptcy participants thus allowing for the repeated interference of the state in its undergoing process.

RUSSIAN ECONOMY in trends and outlooks ing to the said law, such list of the strategic enterprises and organisations is subject to its formal approval by the RF Government only provided it has been duly and officially pub lished.

The said Instructions of the RF Government prescribed that all concerned bodies of the federal executive power shall present, each year in February, sufficiently grounded proposals on introducing such or other changes in and amendments to the said list of the respective strategic enterprises and organizations to the RF Ministry of Economic Devel opment and the latter, in its turn, shall present, each year in March, proposals, duly coor dinated with the federal executive power bodies concerned, on introducing changes in or amendments to the said list of the respective strategic enterprises and organizations to the RF Government. At present, this said list consists of 591 FPUEs, 494 open joint stock so cieties and 46 other enterprises (including 37 state enterprises and business associa tions,15 8 closed and 1 Ltd. society). However, the document does not yet make quite clear the degree of the state participation in the capital of the strategic enterprises and organi zations making this said list, except for the federal property unitary enterprises.

Adoption of the two above mentioned lists logically resulted in certain renewal of the respective normative and legal bases of the state property policies with regard to the eco nomic societies where it (the state) participates in their respective capitals which step should have been made long ago as required by the legal norms of the said laws on privati zation and insolvency (bankruptcy). This was accompanied with further increases in the quantity of various lists of the economic societies with state participation in their respective capitals and whose activities are governed by different legal norms and different regulating instrumentation.

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