The Croatian government on Wednesday adopted a decision on ensuring funds needed for the transformation of the Institute of Immunology company into a public institution, instructing the Restructuring and Sale Centre (CERP) to pay the Institute the first installment for that purpose, amounting to 3.2 million kuna.
The government entrusted the State Property Management Office (DUUDI) and CERP with implementing its decision, instructing CERP to pay, on behalf of the state, the first 3.2 million kuna into the Institute's bank account so that the process of its transformation could continue and conditions could be secured to establish it as a public institution and enable its operations, on which the government made a decision last week.
CERP has been instructed to make the payment from funds obtained through the management of stakes owned by the state and other sources in line with legislation on the management of state-owned property.
"We have solved this problem, and we did not cause it," Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said at today's government session while Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Branko Grcic said that this was a new stage in dealing with problems regarding the Institute of Immunology.
"Last week, we decided (on the ownership transformation) because the non-payment of its employees' salaries in the past three months could have caused its bankruptcy on September 1 and completely stop the process of ownership transformation," said Grcic.
"The state is the majority owner of the Institute of Immunology and filing for bankruptcy would have prevented the transfer of its property to the new institution and the process of ownership transformation, and today's decision enables the continuation of the process as planned," Grcic said.
The government decided last week that the Institute of Immunology should become a public institution of strategic and general commercial interest for Croatia in order to ensure the continuation of the production of vaccines and blood products from human plasma as a type of production of strategic importance for the country's health system and for the protection of its citizens' health.
The decision on the transformation of the Institute came after its failed privatisation and the government's decision in early July to turn down an offer by the Visia Croatica company for the purchase of the state-owned stake in the Institute of Immunology.
(Hina) rml
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