May 22 (SeeNews) - Serbia's finance ministry plans to carry out a tender for the sale of a second package of non-performing loans (NPLs) in October, minister Sinisa Mali has said.
"Serbia has successfully sold the first package of NPLs with a value of 240 million euro ($267.9 million), which was among the objectives defined by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and we are now preparing the sale of a second package," Mali said in a video file posted on the website of news agency Tanjug on Tuesday.
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In this way, the government will restructure the bad assets of banks that have been insolvent for more than 15 years, Mali said during a news conference on the completion of a visit by an IMF team during May 10-21 for the second review under the Fund's 30-month Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) with the country.
In February, the finance ministry said it picked the 11.3 million euro offer of German financial company EOS Matrix in its first tender for the sale of a portfolio of NPLs. The portfolio includes loans of Serbia's insolvent lenders Agrobanka, Nova Agrobanka, Univerzal Banka, Privredna Banka Beograd and Razvojna Banka Vojvodine.
The ratio of NPLs in Serbia's banking sector stood at 5.5% at the end of March. The NPL ratio was reduced by 16.7 percentage points from the level recorded in August 2015 when the NPL Resolution Strategy was adopted, Serbia's central bank said last week.
($ = 0.89575 euro)