MOSCOW, August 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told a government session it was necessary to analyze the reasons why the government has not met the goals of its privatization plans in recent years.
"It is necessary to analyze [the progress of privatization] carefully and find out the reason for the delay," Fradkov said.
"Year in and year out we see that the planned privatization rates have not been met," he said.
Only about two dozen state enterprises, out of the more than 1,400 planned, were privatized in the first half of 2005. Interestingly, a couple of major privatization projects accounted for 50% of the budget returns from the privatization program, the main project being Russia's metallurgy giant Magnitogorsk Integrated Iron and Steel Works (the Urals), which was privatized last year.
