Parliament approved on October 11 with its third and final reading a legislative amendment allowing the government to float stakes of state-owned enterprises (SOE) on international stock markets.

The government has said that only minority stakes of such enterprises like railway, as well as of assets in energy sector would go for initial public offering on international stock markets. But lawmakers from the parliamentary minority were proposing to provide legal guarantees of this verbal commitment by including a provision in the legislative amendment banning selling controlling stakes of these assets.

Such a provision, however, is envisaged in a separate law in respect of Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC), a state-owned company operating the North-South Gas Pipeline, transporting gas from Russia to Armenia via Georgia. That law on oil and gas currently states that the state should be own more 75% of GOGC. Amendments are currently under discussions in the Parliament according to which the government should own “more than 50%” of GOGC, instead of current 75%. This legislative amendment was passed with its second reading on October 11.