Gulf capital used to buy Polish shipyards: Tusk

(WARSAW) - Gulf capital is behind the consortium which bought two of Poland's three historic shipyards this week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated Saturday.

"There is a specific fund which represents the interests and financial potential of that region," he told the radio station RMF FM.

"It would not have been possible without my many visits to Qatar and Kuwait, without my telephone conversations and the exchange of mail."

The ARP, a government agency responsible for handling privatisations, said Thursday that United International Trust had paid a total of 364 million zlotys (82 million euros, 115 million dollars) for the yards at Gdynia and Szczecin on Poland's northern Baltic coast.

It said that the buyer was planning "other forms of economic activity" in parallel to shipbuilding.

Warsaw has revealed little about the buyer, only saying that it had acted through an an intermediary, Stichting Particulier Fonds Greenrights, which like United International Trust is based in Curacao, a Caribbean offshore haven run by the Netherlands.

"Why are Arab investors interested?" Tusk said on Saturday. "Because they are interested in cooperating with us in the field of gas, and to participate in the Polish gas market."

Polish gas firm PGNiG announced on April 15 that it had signed a deal with the Qatari firm Qatargas for the supply of one million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year.

PGNiG said that the deal provided for a 20-year supply contract with Qatargas, with shipments set to begin in 2014.

The gas will be shipped by tankers to a terminal currently being built at Swinoujscie on Poland's northwest Baltic coast, near the border with Germany.

Poland, which meets 30 percent of its gas needs from its own resources, 40 percent from Russian imports and the remainder from a variety of sources, has been looking for ways to further diversify its suppliers.

The European Commission, which polices competition rules in the 27-nation European Union, had ordered Poland to sell its shipyards, after ruling that Warsaw had doled out illegal state aid to keep them in business.

The proceeds of the sales must be used to pay off the yards' creditors and the state subsidies which were faulted by the European Commission.

The no-strings tendering process was open to all, from shipbuilders to bidders with an eye on the yards' real estate -- leaving some 9,000 employees nervously awaiting news of their future.

The issue of the third yard in Gdynia's neighbouring port of Gdansk is being handled separately by Brussels, which has yet to give its verdict on a restructuring plan there.

The shipyards hold particular significance for many Poles because they were the cradle of protests against the communist old order.

Dozens of people were killed there when security forces fired on workers demonstrating against food price rises in 1970.

In 1980, a strike at the Gdansk yard led to the creation of the trade union Solidarity, which snowballed across the shipbuilding industry into a nationwide protest movement.

Driven underground by a military clampdown in 1981, Solidarity reemerged to negotiate a peaceful end to communist rule in 1989.