Ukraine is considering selling its 38% stake in the Lotus Port, which is located in Vietnam, and using the proceeds from its sale to finance revival of the Black Sea Shipping Line.
Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Yurii Lavreniuk announced this in comments to CFTS.
"There is a general view that this port, in which USD 3.3 million was invested back in the 1990s to acquire a stake in it, could be sold. For this, we want to perform an overall assessment of the company and then conduct a concrete discussion of the issue of sale of our stake in it.
“The Black Sea Shipping Line has a debt of about UAH 157 million (USD 5.8 million). Given the fact that the Black Sea Shipping Line has other lost assets abroad that we also want to return and assets in Odesa … that have already been registered as state-owned, there is a vision to revitalize this enterprise…" said Lavreniuk.
As reported, Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian recently announced that Ukraine owns a stake in the Lotus Port, which is located near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. However, according to him, the port has not paid dividends to Ukraine since 2011 because of the illegal activities of the Black Sea Shipping Line’s representative in Vietnam.
The state-owned Black Sea Shipping Company had a fleet of 400 vessels during the Soviet era. Most of the vessels were acquired by offshore companies or sold at auctions to pay off debts in 1990.
The Odesa Regional Economic Court decided to launch bankruptcy proceedings against the Black Sea Shipping Company in 2003 and a financial rehabilitation program was launched for the company in February 2006 at the request of its creditors.
The State Maritime and River Transport Service (Ukrmorrichflot) announced in 2011 that the state would retain ownership of the Black Sea Shipping Company's assets and that they would not be used to repay the company’s debts.
It was reported at the beginning of January 2017 that the State Property Fund had decided to put Black Sea Shipping Line up for privatization.
