The Russian government may move from merely monitoring the financial actions of state-owned companies to regulating and controlling their large-scale borrowing and investments, officials said on Saturday.
"We are talking about the next stage, [to use] not only monitoring but also the ability to control, to influence, to say [to state corporations and companies with state participation]: 'No, we believe this is excessive borrowing,'" Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin told reporters on Saturday on the sidelines of the gathering of G20 finance ministers in South Korea.
Such mechanisms will be introduced by the end of the year, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Savatyugin said earlier on Saturday.
He said the Finance Ministry was already monitoring borrowing by state-owned companies: "The Central Bank tells us what loans [are planned], and we call the companies and find out."
Pankin said the controls will apply to large loans and large investments.
"If a decision is being taken on a major investment, it has to be agreed with the Finance Ministry. If a decision is being taken on a large loan, it also has to be agreed with the Finance Ministry," he said.
Pankin said the Finance Ministry had drawn up a draft of the relevant regulation, but the mechanisms still needed to be agreed upon with the Economic Development Ministry.
"They think we are trying to have too much control of state-owned companies, and that on the contrary the trend should be to give more freedom to companies, that they should make their own decisions," the deputy finance minister said.
"But we are trying to bring state-owned companies into line with the government, with the Finance Ministry, on a whole range of positions," Pankin said.
Concern about the borrowings of state companies first arose during the financial crisis, because state-owned companies were among the first to go onto the external market and build up large debts that they struggled to repay.
GYEONGJU (South Korea), October 23 (RIA Novosti)
