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SARAJEVO, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Foreign investors have advertised in local newspapers offering to buy privatisation vouchers from Bosnian citizens for around 30 percent of the nominal value, daily Oslobodjenje reported on Thursday.
The Sarajevo-based daily identified one such foreign firm as BHW Consulting from Germany, but said there were also others interested in buying Bosnian privatisation vouchers.
Feriz Gabela, deputy director of the privatisation agency of Bosnia's Moslem-Croat federation, told Oslobodjenje that foreign investors could not directly use vouchers to buy local companies in the privatisation process.
Gabela added, however, that they could appoint a local representative to buy vouchers on their behalf, so enabling them to buy state-owned assets.
The mass privatisation programme in the federation got under way in May with the distribution of vouchers. Some smaller auctions have already been held.
The vouchers are intended to compensate Bosnians for frozen pre-war foreign currency accounts, unpaid salaries and for other war-related government debts.
Most people are expected to use the vouchers to buy apartments they live in.
Total claims in the federation are estimated at roughly 16 billion marka ($8.8 billion), translating into an average 8,000 marka for each of the 1.9 million citizens in the federation.
The total value of state assets to be privatised has been estimated at 26 billion marka, including firms in strategic sectors, such as the telecommunications and power supply sectors.
Some of the assets, including state-owned banks, will be sold solely for cash.
Alija Izetbegovic, the Moslem co-chairman of Bosnia's collective presidency, said some Croatian firms and banks had recently been buying vouchers from Bosnian war veterans in an organised way.
``This means that they would obtain a great part of our companies at low cost and become owners while we would be lessees,'' Izetbegovic told Oslobodjenje.
Post-war Bosnia is divided into two autonomous entities: the Moslem-Croat federation and the Serb republic. Bosnia's Serb half is also preparing to privatise state-owned assets.