FinMin widens scope of hard currency account to include bond inflows

The Finance Ministry widened the scope of its hard currency account in the central bank to include inflows from international bond issues, a senior ministry official said on Tuesday. The account was created at the beginning of 2000 in order to store part of privatization inflows covering foreign debt servicing costs. It was also meant to limit the upward pressure on the zloty from the inflow of dollar- or euro-denominated privatization receipts. A ministry official said the planned euro 250 million from Poland's euro 750 million eurobond issue in January has already been transferred to the account, which now stores funds worth some $800 million. (Reuters, Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 13) M.S.C.