Bashkiria chances to extend public debt restructuring program are quite small - Ministry of Finance

UFA, 31 October 2019. /Bashinform News Agency/ translated by Tatiana Aksyutina/.

Bashkiria may not be included in the debt restructuring program, which should be valid until 2024. The Minister of Finance of the Republic, Lira Igtisamova, said that the region would not be able to fulfill the condition for increasing tax revenues for two consecutive years due to substantial revenues in 2018, TASS reports.

“The republic’s prospects of getting into the program to extend the state debt restructuring are slim because, on the one hand, the high tax base of the past year prevents it. We had one-off receipts on corporate income tax; we will not be able to compensate for these figures this year with the best will in the world. It was a large sum, one-time payment of almost 18 billion rubles, there were certain decisions, including judicial ones, ”said Lira Igtisamova.

The national debt of Bashkiria by the end of the year will amount to about 14 billion rubles against 16.2 billion in 2018, mostly borrowings from the federal budget. In 2020, the regional market debt will be paid off, the minister added.

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Anton Siluanov at a meeting in the State Duma in late September said that the Ministry of Finance was preparing a proposal to the regions to restructure 75 billion rubles of budget loans in 2020, subject to investment in development and new infrastructure projects.

Lira Igtisamova noted that the restructuring of previously issued loans was carried out in 2017, and in 2024 the terms of this restructuring expire. According to her, those entities that over two years had their tax and non-tax revenues higher than the rate of inflation, will be able to extend the restructuring program. “For example, if our budget is restructured for five years, we can extend it up to 7 years, and these funds should be allocated for investment purposes,” the minister said.