Most ministries have their own program related to the Acquis Communautaire as Slovakia plans to join the EU. Your ministry is focused on two chapters, Transport policy and Telecommunications & Information Technologies. Can you give our readers a brief overview of those chapters and a timeframe for their implementation?
Our ministry has a wide variety of tasks: transports, telecommunication and postal services. In all these sectors we are responsible for the Acquis Communautaire, the politics of pre-accession steps required. I would like to start with telecommunication and postal services. Here we had to adopt some legislation acts to comply with the EU legislation. We are supposed to adjust our laws and make the business environment equal to the one in the EU. We passed a telecommunication law last year, now we are in a process of passing a postal services law. So, in these areas we should be compatible with the EU. We have a fully liberalized environment in the telecommunication sector. The voice services, where the Slovak Telecom has a monopoly, should be liberalized by the end of the year 2002. Our only telecommunication operator, the Slovenske Telekomunikacie was privatized last year. 51% of the shares belong to Deutsche Telecom. At the moment we are in a process of preparation of a tender for the third operator for mobile phones. We also prepare licenses for the operation technologies of a third generation UMTS.
What were the conditions set by the Government to let Deutsche Telecom take over the company?
The tender was an international one, we asked for offers from foreign telecommunication operators and the reason Deutsche Telecom won we believed they are a strong international operator with the capacity to transfer a great deal of know-how. We wanted the Slovenske Telekomunikacie to remain a strong company even when the monopoly for fixed voice services is over in 2002. We wanted the new owner to invest into the development of the company in the forthcoming years. We also expected some money to come into the state budget.
The amount paid by Deutsche Telecom was 1 billion Euro. Do you know what is the amount to be invested in the future?
According to the contract, they should invest at least one billion Euro over the next four years.
What do you intend to do with the remaining shares that belong to the state?
According to the contract, we agreed not to touch the shares for a year. We have already fulfilled this condition. We expect in the future to sell 15% on the stock exchange. We expect to keep the remaining 34%, and see what we do with it later.
You have the project to create a new governmental telecommunication company Energotel, using the facilities of the energy sector. How do you foresee the impact of such a project on the market?
The company you are talking about is going to be created by merging infrastructures owned by the companies within the energy sector. You can't call this company a state company, because we plan a major privatization within the energy sector for next year. This company owns a long distance network system, but doesn't own the so-called last mile. It can be a competitor of Slovenske Telekomunikacie in data transfer, which has already been fully liberalized. There is nothing wrong about competition.
One sector that is growing fast is the mobile phone market with the cheapest price per minute in the world. Representatives of Globtel and Eurotel say the number of mobile phone lines will exceed the number of fixed lines by 2002. How do you feel about that perspective?
We aren't against competition in this area,
it is up to the marketing of the Slovenske
Telekomunikacie to keep the customers. Slovenske
Telekomunikacie owns 60% shares in the mobile
operator Eurotel. We want to create a wider
competition within this area, we are about
to announce a tender for a third mobile phone
operator. Globtel and Eurotel will loose their
exclusivity for GSM 1800 by the first half
2002. |
What is the price of this license offered on the market?
We have some expectations and that is why we organize a tender. We expect major European companies to be interested in this tender. The license is also for UMTS.
Back to the transport sector, the Railways of Slovakia represent a sensitive issue since it has been inefficient over the last few years. What are your Ministry's plans to make the sector more competitive?
The Slovak railways are not in a fine economic situation. They have had debts for a long time. The loans they got were used for management and not for development. Our goal is to divide ZSR into two companies, one of them responsible for the infrastructure is going to remain a state property. Later on, we want to create a private company for personal transport and cargo. This is going to be a joint stock company and the state is going to own 100% in the first phase. According to the legislation, private companies will be able to step in.
You are about to privatize the Slovak Bus Company SAD. 49% are going to be sold, 51% will remain in the hands of the state. Can you give us the timeframe for this privatization?
There are 17 regional companies operating within this field in Slovakia and we intend to privatize them. We plan to privatize 49% and the money stemming from this transaction should be used to increase the registered capital. The state has invested very little over the past years and buses have become old. We want to reverse this process. We plan to complete this project in six months. We plan to sell further 17% later on and the remaining 34% should be passed on to the regional governments.
Within the concept of the development of the Highway infrastructure, approved by the Government in 1999, around 8bn SKK yearly were supposed to be invested. According to which strategy are you planning the development of your highways?
In the year 1999 we planned to invest yearly 8 billion SK into highways over the next four years, total would be 32 billion SK. We have modified this project for the year 2002 and it will extend to the year 2006. We plan to invest around 65 billion SK. We increase the total amount invested in the years 2001 and 2002 up to 11 billion SK yearly due to the inflation increase. We want to keep on building highways on the same rhythm. We build the highways according to the so-called Trans-European corridors, which were approved by the European Ministers of Transport. These corridors cross Slovakia in two directions: north to south and west to east.
What would be your final message to our readers?
A14/ Slovakia has a potential in development. It has educated people, traditions and well built infrastructure to make everybody's business successful. The increase of the foreign direct investments is a proof of this.
Note: World Investment News Ltd cannot be held responsible for the content of unedited transcriptions. |
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