ZAGREB, May 17, 2019 – Unprofitable businesses will no longer be financed from the state budget, Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Friday, noting that after bankruptcy proceedings had been launched for Uljanik d.d., the umbrella company of the Uljanik shipbuilding group, negotiations would continue with investors who had commissioned four ships that were being built by the Pula-based group.
The Commercial Court in Pazin decided earlier in the day to launch bankruptcy proceedings for the company over a debt of 98 million kuna.
Horvat said that he learned of the proceedings from media reports. “I… am aware of the fact that some things that are in the final stage of negotiations and concern the four vessels that are under construction could have been negotiated outside the bankruptcy proceedings. But the process goes on and we are continuing talks with both Jan De Nul and colleagues from Canada on ways of completing those ships, in the Pula or the Rijeka dock or somewhere else,” Horvat told reporters on the margins on a business conference.
Horvat said that banks and the state would become owners of the ships that are being built by Uljanik.
He said that talks with the Belgian Jan De Nul group, for which Uljanik is building a dredger for which the government has given collateral in the amount of 125 million euro, were continuing.
Asked to comment on Uljanik workers’ ‘congratulating’ him on buying taxpayers vessels worth millions of euros and saying that he cared more about ships than people, Horvat said that he did not agree. “We tried to postpone the bankruptcy proceedings as much as we could…. but the state budget will no longer finance unprofitable projects,” said Horvat.
Asked what the bankruptcy of the umbrella company of the Uljanik group meant for other companies in that group, he said that bankruptcy proceedings would be launched successively in other companies as well.
He, too, reiterated that a technical delegation of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) would arrive in Croatia on Monday and that aside from Uljanik, it would also visit the Zagreb-based Brodarski Institut and the Rijeka-based 3. Maj shipyard.
Asked if talks were also underway with Danko Končar and Tomislav Debeljak about the takeover of individual Uljanik group companies or the completion of individual vessels, Horvat said that the government was not conducting talks with either man. “I’m not thinking in that direction at all,” he said.
He explained that after bankruptcy, Uljanik workers would be registered with the Employment Service and that Labour and Pension System Minister Marko Pavić had come up with measures to help them return to the labour market. “Also, close to 1,200 people will get from the state the maximum they can get at the moment,” he said.
Uljanik d.d. has 20 employees, but so far, a number of companies from the Uljanik group have gone bankrupt. Earlier this week, bankruptcy proceedings were opened for the Uljanik shipyard, which has 1,118 employees. Bankruptcy proceedings have also been launched for five other companies from this group.
Whether bankruptcy proceedings will also be launched for the 3. Maj shipyard, which is part of the Uljanik group and employs 800 people, will be known at a hearing at the Rijeka Commercial Court set for June 5.
More news about the shipbuilding industry can be found in the Business section.
