17 May 2008
PM Tymoshenko told the press yesterday that the government did not have the list of 29 enterprises subject to privatization revision. She repeated her earlier statement that the Cabinet of Ministers had instead drafted a law on privatization revision that should be applied to all large companies. The draft law, according to Yulia Tymoshenko, will be submitted to the Parliament for its approval shortly. Concorde Capital: Yulia Tymoshenko?s statement is contrary to Deputy Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh?s and President Yushchenko?s recent announcements that the list of 29 companies is ready and will be published soon. While Yulia Tymoshenko is right that there should be fair privatization criteria in Ukraine, the threat of mass-scale re-privatization sends negative signals to shareholders, managers, and investors. The government should have made public and clear its strategy to avoid the risks.