December 23, 2006	Saturday	Zilhaj 01, 1427

BUCHAREST, Dec 22: The Romanian government is to halt the privatisation of the savings bank CEC because it received only one bid, from the National Bank of Greece, Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu said on Friday.“Unfortunately, the privatisation commission received only one offer to buy CEC, from the NBG: the other bank in the running, OTP of Hungary, pulled out,” he told reporters.

He said that the commission had decided to advise the government to halt the process of privatisation and although he did not rule out a sale of the CEC eventually, the process would not be resumed for “one or two years”.

He said that NBG had offered 560 million euros ($739 million) for a stake of 69.9 per cent in CEC.

“We must now concentrate on the restructuring and modernisation of the savings bank,” he said.—AFP