Thin privatisation pickings in 2003

Poland netted only 4.13 billion zlotys (890 million euros, 1.1 billion dollars) in privatisation revenues in 2003, less than half than the 9.1 billion originally forecast at the beginning of the year, the treasury ministry said. The ministry, realising early in the year that privatisation revenues would be less than expected, revised its annual forecast down to 4.5 billion zlotys in April. Poland, which broke away from the communist bloc in 1989, has been privatising state owned enterprises ahead of its membership of the European Union on May 1. Its privatisation revenues were nevertheless higher this year than in 2002 when it pocketed 2.2 billion zlotys, a third of what it planned. Poland's 2004 budget call for 8.8 billion zlotys in revenues.