DECISION No. 05/2000/QD-TTg OF JANUARY 05, 2000 AMENDING AND SUPPLEMENTING THE PRIME MINISTER�S DECISION No. 95/1998/QD-TTg OF MAY 18, 1998 ON HANDLING THE SECOND-PHASE DEBT SETTLEMENT

THE PRIME MINISTER

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To amend and supplement the provisions in Articles 5, 7, 20, 25 and 30 of Decision No. 95/1998/QD-TTg of May 18, 1998 of the Prime Minister on handling the second-phase debt settlement.

1. Article 5, the opening paragraph is amended as follows:

"Article 5.- For debts owed to the State budget by operating State enterprises, the financial bodies at the same level shall assume the prime responsibility in handling them. Cases that fall beyond their respective competence shall be submitted to the competent levels for decision".

The classification of State budget debts for settlement (Clauses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, Article 5) shall not change.

2. Article 7, the opening paragraph is amended and supplemented as follows:

"Article 7.- When the bank debts have already been put into the debt payment network, with certification of the local debt settlement board, the banks shall base on the guidance of the Central Steering Board for General Debt Settlement to consider and handle them: if they are bank debts to be recovered, the commercial banks shall handle them with their financial reserve funds, if these sources are not enough, the banks shall account them into their business results and report such to the State Bank. For loan debts turned into State budget capital allocations, the commercial banks shall report them to the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank for handling as prescribed.

Monthly, the commercial banks shall report the tempo of debt settlement to the Central Steering Board for General Debt Settlement and the Ministry of Finance.

3. Article 20 is amended as follows:

"Article 20.- For the debts of the National Reserves, basing itself on the handling conclusion of the local Debt Settlement Board (to be written off or transferred to local administration), the National Reserve Department shall have to settle and synthesize and report them to the Central Steering Board for Debt Settlement and the Ministry of Finance, so that the latter shall decide to decrease capital allocated to the National Reserve Department, which shall monthly have to report on implementation situations to the two above-mentioned agencies".

4. Article 25 is amended as follows:

"Article 25.- For enterprises which borrow foreign capital with guaranty by ministries, branches or localities but are unable to pay their debts, the ministries, branches or localities shall assume the prime responsibilities and negotiate with the foreign creditors so as to reduce the payable debt amounts (both principal and interest) to the lowest level and organize the debt sale as prescribed or work out plans for including them into budgets of the same level to have sources for foreign debt payment, the enterprises that buy debts or have foreign debts paid by budgets shall have to repay to the budget. If meeting with any difficulties, the ministries, branches and localities shall report them to the Ministry of Finance for submission to the Prime Minister for decision."

5. Article 30 is amended as follows:

"Article 30.- Creditors, debtors, guarantors and heirs shall have to settle their debts in accordance with this Decision. In cases where debtors are serving their prison terms and have not yet made the economic compensation by decisions of the courts, these debt amounts shall be transferred to local Finance Service for supervision and gradual collection through judgment enforcing agencies. The agencies that decide to establish or are authorized to establish these enterprises shall be responsible to the Government for debt settlement.

State enterprises shall be entitled to account their bad debts into annual business results for one or more times, but not more than 5 years. If due to the accounting of debts into their business results, the enterprises suffer from profit decrease or loss correspondingly to the bad debt amounts accounted into business results of that year:

- The enterprises are still entitled to borrow loans from commercial banks as before the debt settlement.

- The enterprises are still entitled to enjoy salary funds as before accounting their bad debts into production and/or business results.

- The enterprises� grades shall be maintained.

- The enterprises are still entitled to deduct their reward and welfare funds as before the debt settlement according to the provisions of current regimes.

For operating State enterprises that borrow loans from each other, if they fail to settle their debts themselves, the financial agencies shall increase capital for the indebted units and decrease capital of units being creditors.

The People�s Committees of the provinces, centrally-run cities , the Ministry of Finance, Vietnam State Bank, the branch-managing ministries and the management boards of Corporations 91 shall provide direction and propose handling measures; problems shall be reported to the Prime Minister for decision".

Article 2.- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its signing. All the previous provisions of Decision No. 95/1998/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister and those of the ministries, the ministerial-level agencies, the agencies attached to the Government which are contrary to the provisions of this Decision shall be annulled.

Article 3.- The Minister of Finance shall guide the implementation of this Decision. The ministers, the heads of the ministerial-level agencies, the heads of the agencies attached to the Government and the presidents of the People�s Committees of the provinces and centrally-run cities shall have to implement this Decision.

For the Prime Minister
Deputy Prime Minister
NGUYEN TAN DUNG