Calik Enerji remains prime candidate for Albtelecom

TIRANE, Oct. 25 – Vice minister of Economy declared that by the end of this month, a completed strategy for the negotiations of the Albtelecom privatization process will be given for consideration to the Economy Minister Genc Ruli. The negotiations will be conducted in the beginning of November with the Turkish “Calik Enerji”.
The crucial point of these negotiations will be the request for the Albanian part for Calik Enerji to become a strategic partner through creating a consortium with another more experienced company in the field of telecommunication. These comment come after the report of the auditing company Deloitte was leaked to one of the most popular televisions in Albania. In this report the main objection of the international company towards “Calik Enerji” was that the latter did not fulfill any condition to be a strategic investor. Ruli has said that the company was presented to the first bid as a consortium with Turk Telecom which was later privatized.
Answering to “Deloitte Czech Republik” report Minister Genc Ruli has declared that the strategic investor condition is nonnegotiable and will be fulfilled. One of the negotiating points will also be roaming. The current government did not ratify the agreement reached by the former one to privatize Albtelecom to the same “Calik Enerji”, upon grounds of non resolving problems related to a wider range of services to be offered. Ruli outlined that the company needs to invest intensively in the network in order to increase competitiveness and offer better prices to the Albanian consumer.
“Calik Enerji” has been the knot of serious debate and political speculation in the last two year since the company first presented its bid of 120 million euro to acquire 76 percent of the state owned communication agency. The Socialist government approved the contract in June 2005 before the elections. The contract was annulled by the newly elected government in October. The issue was subject of the democrat’s election platform which accused the Socialists of committing a serious blunder by choosing “Calik Enerji”. After all the political debate though, the Turkish Company remains the prime candidate for the privatization of Albtelecom.