Serbia's RTB Bor is seeking a new management team to prepare the state-run copper mine and smelter for privatisation and repay up to 1 billion euros ($1.05 billion) of debt. The Balkan state has been trying to privatise RTB Bor for more than a decade. As part of a 1.2 billion-euro loan deal agreed with the International Monetary Fund in 2015, Belgrade must dispose of its remaining and mainly loss-making state-owned companies.

Last month, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic made a plea for Hesteel, China's biggest steelmaker, to buy the copper miner, which employs about 5,000 people, or more than one in 10 people in the Bor municipality in eastern Serbia. A restructuring plan submitted by Serbia's only copper mine envisages writing off 90 percent of its debt, mainly to state electricity and transport companies, and a one-year grace period before starting to pay back the rest.

The plan also envisages cutting 1,500 jobs over five years, starting from 2017. An advertisement published in the Politika daily stipulated that the new RTB Bor leadership of 10 people must offer a plan for the company's development, improvement of production and sales and implementation of a restructuring plan.

Copyright Reuters, 2017