The state"s debts towards companies, used as collateral for loans

• Sulfina Barbu: "In the next two or three weeks, the Government will finalize new measures intended to support the business sector"

Companies that have debts they need to recover from the state may be able to use these debts as collateral for securing bank loans.

The government is working on a new plan intended to relaunch lending and to tackle the issue of the state"s unpaid debts towards private companies, PDL deputy Sulfina Barbu said for BURSA. Sulfina Barbu is one of the leaders of the government group tasked with drafting the measures intended to stimulate the economy.

Sulfina Barbu said: "The government wants to improve the transparency of the process for the payment of its debts to private companies and it will draft a list that will include all the companies that are owed money by the state".

"The companies in question will be able to access bank loans by presenting the bank with the proof that they are featured on the list of companies which have receivables against the state. Even if the state were to pay its debts to companies on time, I am convinced that this mechanism will work and we will successfully relaunch lending".

The PDL deputy said that the new system is still being worked on, and that it may get implemented in the near future.

• Bankers: "We want to know the deadlines for the payment of the debts"

Bankers are very interested in the mechanism that the Government plans to implement to help stimulate lending, but they claim that the Government needs to clearly mention the delays for paying its debts towards companies.

"Companies that want to borrow money using this mechanism will need to present written proof, so we can know what we are talking about, as well as the time it would take for them to get their money back from the state", said Radu Graţian Gheţea, the chairman of the Romanian Banking Association.

Gheţea stressed that bankers would lend to companies that have money to collect from the state, but that it will depend on the types of collateral presented by companies.

• Businesspeople: "We want the money first"

On the other hand, businesspeople claim that any step to restart lending is welcome, but that it would have been better if the state had decided to pay up its debts first and only then come up with such complementary measures.

"It would be better if the state decided to pay up its arrears to the private sector and only then come up with additional proposals such as this one to rekindle lending", said Florin Pogonaru, the chairman of the Association of Romanian Businesspeople (AOAR).

Pogonaru said that this mechanism will not be successful unless the government also introduces clearly defined delays for the payment of its arrears to the private sector.

According to some statistics, the state has 1.8 billion Euros in unpaid arrears towards private companies.

• The IMF raised the issue of the state"s arrears towards private companies

The new mechanism for supporting companies that have money to recover from the state, comes as the Government recently adopted a different measure that provides the extinguishment of mutual claims between the state and the private sector.

The state will suspend the foreclosure procedure in the case of companies that, while having arrears towards the state, also have money to collect from the latter.

The issue of the state"s debts towards the private sector has also been raised by the IMF in its talks with the government concerning the release of the final tranche of the loan.

The mission of the IMF requested that the Romanian authorities settle once and for all the issue of the state"s arrears, in the context of the release of the final 900 million tranche of the loan agreement.