Lukashenka yields MAZ to Putin

The Belarusian ruler agreed on setting up Rosbelavto holding company after a meeting with the Russian president.

The merger of MAZ and KamAZ to form Rosbelavto holding company promises to be quick after the two-year negotiations. Belarus's economic situation does not allow Lukashenka to slow down setting up the heavy-duty truck manufacturing alliance. Sources in the Belarusian Council of Ministers say several draft agreements on giving the Minsk Automobile Plant under control of the future holding company are being prepared, Gazeta.ru writes.  

“The process of setting up technological alliances between enterprises of the two countries gains momentum, which seems especially important to me. The work to set up Rosbelavto holding company, which will unite MAZ and KamAZ – the leaders of Russian and Belarusian truck industry, has been started,” Vladimir Putin said Friday evening in St Petersburg after a meeting of the supreme state council of the “union state” of Russia and Belarus and talks with Lukashenka.

Denis Manturov, the minster of industry and trade of Russia, said after Putin's statement that the sides were to determine the management system for Rosbelavto holding company by April 15.

“It will be a separate holding company that must perform the functions of managing two production enterprises of MAZ and KamAZ,” he noted. Manturov added that the holding company will be founded on a parity basis. “As for the option for a purchase of one share to acquire the controlling stake [in MAZ], that is the main question, we have to define the terms by April 15,” the minister stressed.

The minister meant the situation, when the Belarusian side is ready to give Rosbelavto a controlling interest in MAZ minus one share. It would allow the Belarusian government to quit the alliance at any moment and regain control over the plant's assets. To make the process of setting the holding company definitive and irreversible, the Russian side wants Belarus to give an option for this share to make a controlling interest in MAZ.

Lukashenka, who was sitting near Putin, seemed to have no objection to the Russian president's remark about Rosbelavto holding company. However, Belarus has been dragging the process of Rosbelavto formation for two years increasing the assessed valuation of its part of industrial assets and proposing new conditions on MAZ's stake in the holding company.

As a source in the Belarusian Council of Ministers said on Monday, the government is preparing several variants of draft agreements on giving the Minsk Automobile Plant under control of Rosbelavto holding company.