April 16 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government has drafted a bill for conversion of Swiss franc-indexed loans into euro loans, it said on Tuesday.
After the conversion, the loan amounts will be reduced by 38% and will carry an interest rate of up to 3.4% plus three-month or six-month EURIBOR, the government said in a statement.
According to Serbian public broadcaster RTS, Serbia's government will assume 15 percentage points of the 38% debt waiver, while the remainder will be incurred by banks.
Banks will be obliged to propose a conversion contract to customers with Swiss francs-denominated loans within a period of 30 days after the adoption of the law. Customers, in turn, will have 30 days to notify the banks if they agree to the offered conditions.
"Under the proposed law, around 16,800 citizens who have borrowed in Swiss francs will have an opportunity to resolve their problem," the government said.
The draft bill will be submitted to Parliament by the end of the week, Serbian finance minister Sinisa Mali said in a separate statement on Tuesday.
The monthly payments on Swiss franc-indexed loans with a total value of about 1.1 billion euro ($1.2 billion) of some 22,000 Serbian citizens jumped in 2015, when the Swiss National Bank suddenly eliminated the fixed exchange rate of the Swiss currency with the euro.
($ = 0.884614 euro)