Vucic: We got Esmark's counteroffer

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said Monday that the Serbian government had received a counteroffer from US steel firm Esmark late on Sunday and the revised offer would be discussed today.

The privatization adviser will give his opinion on the new offer during the day, and the commission on strategic partnership will do the same next morning, Vucic told reporters on an airplane to Skopje Macedonia for a joint meeting of the Macedonian and Serbian governments.

The Serbian government will meet to discuss the opinions after they are received, Vucic said.

Vucic told Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) in Zagreb yesterday that Serbia had presented the US steel producer with its final position on Zelezara Smederevo privatization and expected a reply by the following morning.

I had several conference talks with Belgrade today. We presented our final position and expect the reply in the morning, said the prime minister, who attended the inauguration of Croatia's new president, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, and had separate meetings with her and other Croatian government offcials and representatives of Croatian Serbs in Zagreb yesterday.

The prime minister said earlier that production at the Smederevo-based steel plant would continue regardless of the outcome of negotiations.

The Privatization Agency of the Republic of Serbia issued an invitation to tender for a strategic partner for Zelezara
Smederevo on December 5, 2014. A total of three bids arrived in the tender, and only one offer, by Esmark Inc., was valid.
The tender was opened on January 9, and the government began talks with Esmark on January 27.