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Miklos: Strategic Enterprises Act Threatens Many Thousands of Jobs
Wednesday 02 December 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, December 2 (TASR) - The Strategic Enterprises Act is a bad law that seriously harms the Slovak economy as it creates an unstable and risky environment for investors, SDKU-DS vice-chairman Ivan Miklos said on Wednesday in reaction to the Government's decision to include the chemicals-maker Novacke Chemicke Zavody (NCHZ) among the group of strategic enterprises.
He said it's not a good solution that saves several hundred jobs only to lose many thousands of others. Miklos added it's not only his opinion, but also that of many of the trade chambers representing foreign investors in Slovakia.
The Government at its meeting Wednesday approved Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek's proposal to include NCHZ into the group of strategic companies.
Jahnatek said that the state should not manage the chemicals-maker NCHZ, now undergoing bankruptcy, long-term. He said that the company should be restructured so it can "stand on its own", and then be sold via public tender.
The Economy Ministry reasoned that NCHZ is important for the proper running of the Slovak economy and that it has more than 500 employees, making it legally a strategic enterprise that can, after the bankruptcy process is finished, be taken over by the state.
The ministry's report said that this will probably have a negative impact on the state budget, even though it is not able to estimate the money that will be generated from the public tender to sell the company, which owes a fine of some €20 million to the European Commission due to its involvement in a price-setting cartel.
Concerns regarding employment were among the reasons why Jahnatek submitted the proposal. NCHZ has over 1,700 employees, while another 5,000 jobs in the supply chain rely on the company being operational.
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