Fin Min wants NBP to use its reserves to buy back Paris Club debts

The Finance Ministry has officially turned to the National Bank of Poland with a proposal to use its currency reserves. The money would be spent on partial repayment of the national debt to the Paris Club, which currently stands at about $19 billion. The Ministry suggested that the Central Bank would buy the debt and in exchange it would receive long-term bonds denominated in Euro, which would be bought by the government over the next 10-15 years. "The amount, which we would like to receive is about a few billion dollars," said Deputy Finance Minister Ryszard Michalski. Earlier this year, the Ministry announced that it would like to repay the debt to the Club within the next 2-3 years. Michalski explained that the 2004-2005 budgets will be too constrained to allocate sums for this purpose, and due to this it needed the NBP's reserves. (Parkiet, p. 7) M.M.