Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend I.Khalilova / The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recommended to the Azerbaijani Government to hold a registration of gross foreign debts of Azerbaijan. The Government said that it will be possible after the enactment of the draft law on Public Debts. For the first time this legislative act will envisage the conduct of non-guaranteed public arrears.
As in previous cases, the Finance Ministry will carry out the registration of guaranteed loans and the State Statistics Committee will register the foreign debts to commercial organizations and banks. Based on this data, the National Bank will summarize the country's gross debts.
The registration of non-guaranteed loans is one of terms for Azerbaijan joining the IMF's social standards on dissemination of statistical data.
The country does not at present carry out the registration of loans that do not hold state guarantee, though the NBA has data on both guaranteed and non-guaranteed loans to determine the amount of financial flows with respect to compiling the payment balance.
Earlier, the IMF recommended that the NBA hold the registration and monitoring of non-guaranteed public arrears. At the recommendation of the IMF, the Government decided to inject a clause on public arrears in the draft law on Public Debts. In the new edition of the bill the Finance Ministry envisages granting the State Committee authority to conduct the registration and monitoring of non-guaranteed public loans in Azerbaijan. The Ministry is currently preparing the bill for the third reading.
The regulation of non-guaranteed loans in a legislative way became necessary because of the difficulty in gaining information of loans taken outby private companies. Compared to guaranteed debts' the total amount of private loans is inconsiderable. The difficulty with the registration of non-guaranteed loans is explained by the absence of limitations of capital flow with the liberalization of the currency market and a way to develop this process is unknown. However, after the registration of non-guaranteed loans' the State Committee will have full data on non-guaranteed loans like the Finance Ministry. This will enable the calculation of gross foreign debts