Moldova and Russia agreed to elaborate the gas debts rescheduling plan in the first half of 2010

It was said at the XI sitting of the Moldovan-Russian inter-governmental commission for economic cooperation held Friday in Chisinau by its co-chairman – Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy of Moldova Valeriu Lazar and Minister of Education and Science of Russian Andrei Fursenko. Valeriu Lazar said the plan to be worked at starting from Friday would be submitted for consideration of two countries’ governments. This issue will be discussed during the meeting in Chisinau of Prime Minister of Moldova Vladimir Filat with the Gazprom Vice-President, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Moldovagaz JSC Valerii Golubev.

According to Valeriu Lazar, it is planned that the parties will work out certain suggestions regarding the settlement of the Moldovagaz’s debt to Gazprom and Factoring-Finance companies and provision of current payments for gas. The Chairman of Board of the Moldovan-Russian company Moldovagaz Alexandr Gusev told the InfoMarket Agency that Moldova’s total debt for natural gas (taking into account Transnistria) currently was $2.3 billion. This amount includes the current and historical debt, fines for late payments. Moldovagaz’s Head emphasized that the debt for gas of consumers of Moldova without Transnistria totaled about $350 million, with $155 million of them being the fine for late payments. Moldovagaz’s current debt to Gazprom for gas consumed in 2009 totals $50 million. The debt of Transnistrian region’s consumers exceeded $2 billion. Transnistria continues accumulating big debts for gas. The main reason of the low level of Transnistria’s payments is the fact that gas is sold in the region at the price which is much lower than the purchasing one.