Uzbekistan's state property committee is offering foreign investors state stock holdings in one cement plant. A committee administration source told Interfax that 25 per cent of the stock in cement company Akhangarantsement (Tashkent region), starting price $4.5m. Akhangarantsement, Uzbekistan's second largest cement-maker, can turn out 1.736Mt of cement annually. The government will retain 25 per cent, the company workforce 24.4 per cent66. Switzerland's Hoilcim already owns 25.6 per cent of the stock. The financial consultant for this privatization is European Privatization & Investment Corporation of Austria. The Akhangarantsement stock sale is part of a program for privatizing major Uzbek enterprises with the support of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The IBRD extended Uzbekistan a US$28m credit for this work back in 1998.