The government may sell up to 100 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) of state assets per year under its latest privatization plan that in 2010 includes airports, ports, shipping companies and an insurer, a government source said.
The state is seeking to boost its depleted coffers by helping the economy through its first recession in a decade, as well as being part of a drive to improve competitiveness in a country where the state is seen as an inefficient corporate manager.
"The list [of companies for sale] is formed. The cost of the whole privatization for 2010 is around 77 billion rubles," the government source told reporters on Monday.
The source estimated that "potentially the market can digest" 50 billion rubles to 100 billion rubles of state asset sales annually over the next three years.
The scale of next year's program is in line with previous government estimates, which earmarked for sale stakes in shipping firm Sovcomflot and insurer Rosgosstrakh.
In addition to those two, 12 other companies currently listed as strategic are down for privatization in 2010.
Among them are three airports — Koltsovo in Yekaterinburg, Tolmachevo in Novosibirsk and Anapa serving the eponymous Black Sea resort town, the source said.
The ports of Novorossiisk, Murmansk, Vanino and Tuapse are also potentially up for grabs, as are five more shipping companies in addition to Sovcomflot.
Nonstrategic privatization targets for next year include power producer TGK-5 and liquid gas transporting and storage specialist SG-Trans, as well as hundreds of small firms.
"I think that for most of these objects there will be buyers, starting from the regions of the Russian Federation and, of course, large Russian companies," the source said.
The privatization program tops the agenda at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's government meeting on Tuesday.
But investors interested in state-controlled heavyweights such as banking giants Sberbank and VTB or energy majors Rosneft and Gazprom will have to wait beyond 2010.
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