ZAGREB, January 2, 2019 – Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said on Wednesday the enforced state guarantees for the Uljanik shipyard, in the amount of some 2.5 billion kuna, were paid on the last day of 2018 but that this did not endanger public finances in any way.
“That’s only the principal. There is certain interest we also have to service, which leaves the part we expect we will have to pay this year,” he told reporters when asked about obligations stemming from state guarantees for the ailing dock.
Marić said the amount of the interest to be paid would be known once the rates were calculated. “All the amounts are large,” he said, adding that he was “not pleased with this situation at all” but that, as far as the government was concerned, this was in the past.
He said someone else should ask and answer why such guarantees were issued and how the money was spent. “It fell to us to service them,” he said, adding that a state guarantee was a state institute which, when enforced, meant that “taxpayers are obliged to service that debt.”
Marić said he was pleased “that we have reached such a level of public finance stability that, despite the enforced guarantees and the high amounts we paid and are paying, public finances haven’t been endangered at all.”
He said this would be evident when the relevant institutions published official public debt data. According to his ministry’s projections, the public debt at the end of 2018 was down by an additional three percentage points, he added.
More news on the Uljanik shipyard can be found in our Business section.
