According to Bulgartabac Holding’s CEO Hristo Lachev, nearly all of the group’s member companies are likely to be sold off by this summer.

Meanwhile, it was announced that the Blagoevgrad-based factory has made a breakthrough on the EU market agreeing an export of its top brand Victory Exclusive to Italy, reports Sofia News agency. Last week, Bulgartabac launched a procedure for picking up a consultant for the privatisation that has to be completed within the nearest months, in view of joining the EU in 2007. The group’s largest cigarette factories in Sofia, Plovdiv and Blagoevgrad, as well as a small facility in the village of Yassen, being public companies, are to be put on sale through the stock exchange, Lachev elaborated in an interview with the private Darik Radio. This is going to be the third attempt to privatise Bulgaria’s tightly regulated tobacco sector that has been repeatedly offered for sale since 2002. In January 2005, a deal with BAT collapsed when the company withdrew its Euro 200 million bid in view of the ‘difficult political environment’. The failed privatisation was one of the reasons that resulted then in the cabinet’s reshuffle. Last December, Bulgaria's economy and energy ministry came up with a number of new options for the privatisation of the tobacco monopoly. (vt)