KYIV, Sept 21 – The Finance Ministry intends to activate work on collecting debts from enterprises for which it has been forced to settle foreign credits, Finance Minister Ihor Mitiukov announced while reporting on the fulfillment of the 1999 budget to Parliament, Ukrainian News reported.
“We are currently preparing three resolutions regarding this problem,” said Mitiukov.
Mitiukov specified that the resolutions will increase pressure on enterprises avoiding the return of foreign credits.
At the same time, the Finance Minister did not concretize the instruments that MinFin will use to collect the debts.
According to Mitiukov, in the current year MinFin has succeeded in returning Hr 100 million previously paid out on state guarantees.
The Cabinet previously placed debts on foreign credits in the same category as tax arrears. This stimulated tax organs to collect the debts, as they have plans that they have target plans for settling arrears.
At the beginning of the year, enterprises owed $868 million (approximately Hr 4 700 million) to the government for credit obligations it has fulfilled.
According to the ministry’s data, just last year the government paid Hr 1 024 million or guaranteed credits that were not returned. It collected only Hr 152 million from debtor enterprises, or 13 percent of the funds lost on fulfilling guarantees.
Since October 1999, the government has refrained from granting guarantees on foreign credits.
