Turkey holds auctions for 3 sugar factories

By Enes Duran and Ayse Bocuoglu Bodur

ANKARA (AA) - The Privatization Administration of Turkey conducted separate auctions to corporatize three sugar factories.

Mus, Alpullu and Kastamonu -- the three factories of the Turkish Sugar Refineries Corporation (Turkseker) -- went up for auction on Friday.

A joint venture of the MBD Construction Company and the Oz-Er-Ka commercial firm offered the highest bid -- 230.2 million Turkish liras ($56.74 million) -- for the Mus sugar factory. The tender started at 199.9 million Turkish liras ($49.3 million).

The auction for the Alpullu sugar factory started at 149.5 million Turkish liras ($36.85 million) and it received bids of up to 150 million Turkish liras ($36.97 million) by the agricultural firm Binbir Gida.

Meanwhile, the Kastamonu sugar factory's auction, which started at 119.6 million Turkish liras ($29.6 million), was not offered enough bids.

The auctions took place within the scope of a privatization of sugar factories -- Afyon, Erzurum, Alpullu, Ilgin, Bor, Kastamonu, Burdur, Kirsehir, Corum, Mus, Elbistan, Turhal, Erzincan, and Yozgat -- started in 2000.

Previously, nine sugar factories -- Bor, Kirsehir, Corum, Yozgat, Turhal, Ilgin, Afyon, Burdur and Elbistan -- were sold for nearly 4.1 billion Turkish liras (nearly $1.3 billion), while the Erzurum sugar factory's auction did not receive enough bids.

* Gokhan Ergocun contributed to this story from Ankara