A decision was made at Friday's State Duma session to order Duma committees on security, property and budget and taxes to inquire about the grounds on which certain entities had been included in the list of federal properties to be privatized.
"[The decision was prompted] by the official publication in the media of the Russian government's regulation, dated August 25, 2005, and the program for the privatization of federal property from 2006-2008, in which, besides a number of strategic and other important entities of the defense, transportation, energy and other sectors, Moscow's Red Square was also included," the document says.
However, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade said the privatization program for 2006 included an open joint stock company under the same name, which is 51.04% owned by the state.
"This enterprise is not a strategic entity, it is a commercial company engaged in non-production activity," a spokesman for the ministry said, failing to specify the sphere of its operation.
The State Duma intends to find out whether the government considered the entities' significance in terms of economic, national and environmental security while placing them on the privatization list.
