The Serbian government has launched an initiative to privatise the incumbent telco Telekom Srbija.
According to Beta, quoting a statement, the process will be overseen by the Ministry of Economy and Privatisation Agency, withy Lazard Freres SAS acting as an advisor.
Telekom Srbija is currently majority (58.11%) state owned, with the remaining shares held by the company (20%), citizens (14.95%) and employees and former employees (6.94%).
Telekom Srbija was valued at €2.2 billion in 2011, when the government asked for a minimum of €1.4 billion for a 51% stake in the company.
Telekom Austria, the only bidder, offered €1.1 billion for the stake.
In a separate development, B92 reports that the boards of RTS and RTS Vojvodina have decided to introduce a receiver licence fee of RSD500 from January next year.
However, Zoran Popovic, the president of the board of RTS, said that there is a possibility this could be reduced.
Although the public broadcasters were funded by receiver licence fees up until last August, these were replaced temporarily by funds from the state budget.
Viewers were required to contribute towards the budget through a fee payable with electricity bills.
