March 13, Minsk /BELTA/. Debts of agricultural organizations in Belarus may be restructured. This was stated in an interview with the newspaper "SB. Belarus Segodnya" by Petr Kazakevich, a member of the working group on resolving problematic issues in the agro-industrial complex and Deputy Head of the Main Economic Department of the Presidential Administration, BELTA reports.
According to him, the total debt of farms is currently very large. Based on the results of 2013, it is almost 21% higher than revenue. Unfulfilled obligations arose for various reasons: due to insufficient production and sales volumes, significant costs, including due to violations of technology with low animal productivity and crop yields, suppression of purchase prices, high bank interest rates, and some others.
To change the situation, the working group considered several approaches. "We settled on restructuring," noted Petr Kazakevich. "A corresponding draft decree has already been prepared for this." However, its implementation requires a certain financial resource. As, indeed, do other transformations.
"Unfortunately, the cost of restructuring is not yet known. At this stage, the main problem boils down to two approaches: restructuring the debts of all agricultural enterprises (i.e., about one and a half thousand) or carrying it out only for the so-called insolvent ones," said the member of the working group. For now, according to him, banks are ready to offer funds for the latter group of farms. At the same time, at a recent meeting of the working group, Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich instructed to create a working subgroup of specialists to thoroughly study this problem from both perspectives.
Petr Kazakevich himself believes that it is necessary to "give a breath of fresh financial air to all farms." In his opinion, this is fairer. "The draft decree also incorporates elements of fairness," noted the Head of the Main Economic Department of the Presidential Administration. "It consists in the fact that restructuring is provided not directly to insolvent farms, but to those who wish to buy them out or merge with them. Only in this case will there be certain benefits. We have already gone through something similar when we rehabilitated loss-making agricultural enterprises at one time. Not everything turned out as desired then, but overall, the measures taken had a positive effect." -0-