FBIH ENTITY AUTHORITIES WANT ARCELOR MITTAL'S ACCOUNT BLOCKED

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (October 6,2008) - The inspectorate administration of the FBIH entity will request that the account of Zenica-based Arcelor Mittal be blocked because of a 2 million Bosnian Marks debt, the head of the administration,Ibrahim Tirak has announced.

According to him the debt was incurred by ignoring a charge payable "for general forest use".

While the steel maker claims to have been exempt from paying this charge by the purchase agreement for the Zenica plant, Tirak responds: "That’s impossible, they are a private company, and there is no reason for the state not to take money from them which belongs to it." Arcelor Mittal has not paid the charge since 2002.
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