The government will set up a special agency for debt collection, the guarantor enters

2024-01-11 07:28:39, Ekonomi CNA

The government will set up a special agency for debt collection, the guarantor

In order to discipline state enterprises that take loans and do not repay them, the Ministry of Finance is preparing a draft law "On the Management of State Guarantees and Irreversible Loans", which aims to create an electronic register with databases.

Until the end of September 2023 when the last data were reported, the guaranteed debt was worth 416 million euros. About 70% of this amount was received from enterprises with state capital, mainly from the energy sector, but the government has entered as a guarantor to international banks and governments.

Mostly this type of debt is paid off from the budget with our taxes instead of being paid by the companies that receive it.

A special agency will be set up to monitor loans where the government has entered as a guarantor. According to the Ministry of Finance, the Agency for guaranteed loans received in second-tier banks reports to the Credit Registry and applies the classification criteria for banks and non-bank financial institutions, so that these loans appear in the Credit Registry even after are transferred to the Agency in order for the information in the Credit Register for these borrowers to be complete.

For loan agreements signed by financial institutions that are part of the respective guarantee schemes, the Agency has the duty to reconcile every three months the data with the lenders and the Ministry responsible for finance and to report every three months to the Ministry of Finance on the progress of the guarantee schemes.

For special guarantee schemes, the Agency has the task of monitoring the repayment of borrowers' obligations to the Ministry responsible for finance for the payments made by the latter within the framework of the guarantee agreements by means of the control of the documentation and with the verifications of the invoices and payment mandate of the entities for determining the detailed procedures for the return of guarantees, loans and subloans and the procedures for taking ownership of assets left as guarantees.

According to the Ministry of Finance, more than 70% of the total state guarantees belong to the energy sector, reflecting the government's policies in terms of supporting the energy sector.

At the end of December 2022, the guaranteed debt portfolio is estimated at 52.2 billion Lek (2.4% of GDP) or 3.8% of the central government's debt portfolio. Guarantees in the domestic market account for 38.1% of the total stock of guaranteed debt or 19.9 billion ALL, while guarantees given in favor of foreign creditors represent 61.9% of the stock of guaranteed debt or 32.3 billion ALL.

The stock of guarantees includes the two guarantees issued by the government of the Republic of Albania during the months of April - May 2020, within the framework of the management of the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the state guarantee which was issued in 2022, for manage the situation created by the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the increase in prices./ Monitor.al