Moscow (AFP) – The Russian government plans to sell Moscow’s Domodedovo airport early next year, several months after taking ownership of the asset over allegations it had come under foreign control, Russia’s finance minister said Tuesday. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov did not say why Russia was selling the airport — the country’s fourth busiest, but said the government had done “a lot of work” on it and that it was aware of potential bidders.
“Next year, I think, literally at the beginning of the year, the stake will be auctioned off, an open auction,” Siluanov said in an interview with Russian state television. A Russian court ruled to transfer ownership of Domodedovo to the state in June, after finding its two owners — Dmitry Kamenshchik and Valery Kogan — were foreign residents who had no right to manage the asset.
Andrei Ivanov, a former government minister who took over the airport following its nationalisation, told Russia’s RBK news outlet in July the airport was in significant debt and was seeking a new owner.
Billions of dollars’ worth of assets have been confiscated by the Russian state since 2022, including those belonging to Western firms like French dairy group Danone and German energy firm Uniper. The Russian state argues the nationalisations are fair and remedy botched privatisations that took place during the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, but critics say they have deterred long-term investment in Russia.
© 2024 AFP
