The Montenegrin government filed a court motion on Friday to consider bankruptcy for the country's single biggest industrial employer, indebted aluminium plant KAP, which faces having its electricity cut off over unpaid bills, Reuters reported. Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica employs 1,200 people and accounted for 4.7 percent of the tiny Adriatic republic's economic output last year. But the debt of the company, which is jointly owned by the state and the Central European Aluminium Company of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, amounts to some 350 million euros ($467 million), equivalent to one tenth of gross domestic product (GDP). It soaks up 3 million euros of state subsidies every month and lost 16.2 million euros in the first quarter of the year. The motion, initiated by the finance ministry, foresees bankruptcy management taking control of KAP cash flow, assets and liabilities until the court rules on July 16 whether to declare the company bankrupt, said court-appointed manager Veselin Perisic. Read more.
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