Government of Kosovo will have shares in Trepça

Prishtinë, Oct 28, 2006 – Minister of Energy and Mining, Ethem Çeku, said for the media in Kosovo that the government will have shares in Trepça as huge amounts of money of Kosovo Consolidated Budget (KCB) has been invested in revitalizing that company.

Çeku also said that Government would have shares also in the construction of Kosovo C power plant and Siboc coalmine. However, he emphasized that most of the shares will belong to the private investors.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Haki Shatri, said that €50 million of the KCB has been invested in Trepça, namely in equipment purchase, activation of mines, salaries, and so on. Bahri Shabani, Head of BSPK said that in addition to the Government also Trepça workers should have shares in Trepça.

The “Trepça” mine near Mitrovica has yielded for hundreds of years lead and silver ore. One of its rarest commodities are crystals.

During the 1980s, it employed 20,000 workers and accounted for 70 percent of all Yugoslavia’s mineral wealth. At its height “Trepça” generated 25 percent of the entire regional industrial production and figured among the principal exporters of the Ex-Yugoslavia.

Experts say that in the subsoil of Kosovo, one of the richest of Europe, are hidden enormous deposits of lignite, lead, zinc, non-ferric metals, gold, silver and petroleum, on top of 17 billion tons of coal.

The Government officials believe that mines in the future will represent the main bedrock for Kosovo’s economic development.

ECIKS