Deputy Prime Minister for EU integration Bozidar Djelic stated that management of Serbian public companies must be synchronised with EU competition regulations before the end of 2011, which means they must be restructured and adjusted to the market model.

Speaking at a roundtable on the restructuring and privatisation of public and utility companies, organised by Ekonom:east Media Group Djelic stressed that public companies in Serbia have accumulated a loss of around €4 billion from 2001 onwards, which is why this sector needs speedy reform.

He said that the loss amounted to €650 million in 2008 alone, while according to estimates, the situation was the same last year.

Djelic noted that the state will remain the majority owner of the Serbian electric power industry EPS, while Telekom is ready to be privatised now that the landline phone market has been liberalised.

President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Milos Bugarin said that the privatisation of public and utility companies should not be carried out at the expense of public interest.

He said that municipalities in Serbia should retain control over remote heating, landfills, water management, sewage and similar services.

Director of the Serbian gas industry Srbijagas Dusan Bajatovic said that before public companies are privatised, clear laws and strategies must be adopted and a system for assessing the results in the public sector established.

Bajatovic noted that Srbijagas must be restructured, adding that it should have three or four daughter companies, namely for system management, transportation, trade and accompanying services. He also advocated recapitalisation of Srbijagas with state support.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Resident Representative in Serbia Bogdan Lisovik stated on Monday that by the recovery of the world economy and overcoming of the economic crisis, the process of privatization of public companies in Serbia should be resumed.

Lisovik pointed out at the round table organized by the Ekonom:east Media Group that the privatization process should be launched via corporatization of the companies and then implementation of restructuring and sale, adding that perfect market conditions should not be waited for.

According to him, the public companies could enlarge export by better business results after the privatization, while the introduction of competition would result in lower prices and reduction of salaries in the companies to a moderate level.

Lisovik underscored that the public companies could help the domestic currency by incurring debts in dinars and not in euros.

Moreover, greater transparency in business of the public companies would enable easier prediction of the trends of the prices of energy products which would facilitate to the central bank's setting of the target inflation