It will be a difficult task to fully repay the debt from the compensation of preferential rates to banks under the state program “Affordable loans 5-7-9%”, taking into account the current dynamics of the use of budget funds, according to the director of the financial stability department of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Pervin Dadashova.
“We can reduce the monthly needs of the program by focusing it, restraining the growth of the portfolio and reducing the amount of compensation. Then the available budget will partially cover the debt. But, judging by the current dynamics, it will be a challenge to fully cover the debt. Therefore, it is necessary to revise the conditions of the program more decisively”, she expressed this opinion in an interview with the agency “Interfax-Ukraine”.
According to the director of the department, the Fund for the Development of Entrepreneurship (FDF) now pays out larger amounts of funds to banks every month than last year, and fulfills its obligations quite systematically.
“At the same time, every month on the portfolio of 129 billion hryvnias there are from one and a half to two billion hryvnias of new claims for compensation. Therefore, the Fund’s debt is a dynamic number, and it is important to understand whether we are able to reduce it at all, for example, by the end of the year,” Dadashova informed.
Talking about how the average monthly expenses for the state program can be reduced in view of the recent changes to it, the director found it difficult to name a specific figure. However, she noted that the reduction of monthly expenses by “5-7-9%” will not be radical without further changes to the design of the program.
“The National Bank sees complete information about the portfolio late. For example, we do not yet have information on lending in the program for the first half of 2024. To assess how much focusing reduces the need, we need actual data,” she clarified.
Dadashova is of the opinion that the acceleration of payments by the Fund, which is being observed, makes it possible to temporarily pay off the debt existing since 2023, which at the beginning of June was at the level of UAH 5.8 billion, but not to completely solve the problem with the origination and repayment of the debt.
“The Fund’s current debt is compensation for the last two or three months. At the end of last year, we encountered “tails” of almost six months, critical for all participants in the process. We must at least not worsen the current pace and reduce the debt as much as possible by the end of the year,” she added.
As reported, as of March 1, the Cabinet of Ministers transferred UAH 2.3 billion from the UAH 7 billion debt owed to them at the beginning of this year to the banks that participate in the state program for compensation of interest rates on “5-7-9%” loans. The government planned to repay the remaining UAH 4.7 billion in March-May. At the same time, according to the report on the financial stability of the National Bank of Ukraine, debt to banks at the beginning of June amounted to UAH 5.8 billion.
According to the data of the Ministry of Finance, during the past week, within the framework of “5-7-9%”, entrepreneurs received 244 preferential loans from authorized banks for a total amount of UAH 1.7 billion, of which 183 loans were from banks of the state sector of the economy for 0.59 billion UAH
In total, since the beginning of 2024, under the program, entrepreneurs have received 13,119 loans for UAH 50 billion, of which 9,922 loans for UAH 25.8 billion came from banks of the state sector of the economy.
