Revenues from TPSA sale unlikely to be traded on local forex market

The Finance Ministry is not likely to exchange any revenues from last week's sale of telecom giant Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA) into zlotys on the local foreign exchange market, a ministry official told Reuters on Tuesday. The Treasury agreed to sell a 12.5% stake in TPSA for zl.3.5 billion to France Telecom and its Polish partner Kulczyk Holding. "The forex market is not likely to see any of this cash. Now that it is on our foreign currency account, if we need zlotys, we will get them from the NBP," said the official, who asked not to be named. The Finance Ministry has a hard currency account in the central bank, where privatization inflows are stored to finance foreign debt servicing costs. The central bank does not have any limits on how much of the cash it can exchange into zlotys for the Finance Ministry. (Reuters)