Moldovan government approves draft law on state securities emission

Chisinau, 25 May /MOLDPRES/-The cabinet today approved a draft law on the emission of state securities (VMS), in order to enforce the guarantees offered by the states. The draft provides for the emission, owning, trading and anticipated extinguishing of these state securities. A statement to this effect was made by Finance Minister Octavian Armasu during the cabinet meeting today.

Armasu did not say whether the draft law provides for state guarantees for the loans offered to the three robbed banks, currently under liquidation.

Previously, Armasu said the Finance Ministry would issue state securities for a 25-year period, at an interest rate of five per cent, based on state guarantees for the loans offered by the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) to the three banks. The draft law provides expressly for the substitution of the guarantees with state securities issued by the Finance Ministry. The emission will be carried out after the parliament approves a draft law.

BNM signed a memorandum of understanding with the Finance Ministry on 9 March 2016, which includes the conditions both institutions have agreed on, in order to enforce the guarantees issued based on government decisions from November 2014 and March 2015. The government offered BNM guarantees for an emergency loan of 9.5 billion lei in November 2014 and 5.34 billion lei respectively, in March 2015, at an interest rate of 0.5 per cent, to Savings Bank, Social Bank and Unibank commercial bank respectively.

(Reporter V. Bercu, Editor L. Alcaza)