OREANDA-NEWS. January 24, 2013. The sales price of the government-owned stake in Belarus’ potash-producing company Belaruskali will not change, even though the potash market is now stagnating, President Alexander Lukashenko said.

“Assets are not put up for sale, when the market is going down. The price is set and bidders are welcome,” Lukashenko told a press-conference on Tuesday.

The controlling stake in Belaruskali will remain in the hands of the government either way, the president said. Lukashenko stated earlier that the market value of Belaruskali was USD 30-32 billion.

Hit by a financial crisis in 2011, the Belarusian government declared an intention to sell some of the state-owned stakes in a number of industry flagships, including Belaruskali, which is fully owned by the state. Belaruskali is one of the world’s largest producers and suppliers of potash fertilizers.

The main shareholder of Uralkali, Suleiman Kerimov, showed an interest in purchasing a controlling stake in Belaruskali, however the price tag of USD 30 billion price tag named by the Belarus government was too high.

In late December last year Uralkali CEO Vladislav Baumgertner declared that Russian fertilizer producer Uralkali was still interested in the purchase of Belarus potash giant Belaruskali, but admitted the deal was not possible given the current circumstances. According to Baumgertner, Belaruskali is non-transparent as the taxation regime in Belarus can be changed any time.

He said that Uralkali, the world's largest potash miner by output and the second biggest potash producer by capacity behind Canada's Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, would only like to acquire a controlling stake in Belaruskali, but Belarusian authorities said earlier that they will keep the controlling stake.

In late November last year Lukashenko told Reuters that Belarus was in talks with five companies over the prospects of selling a government-owned stake in Belaruskali, which controls 16% of the world’s potash fertilizer market.