January 30 2002, 12:08 UNIAN

Farmers honor their bills. 88% of loans received in 2001 refunded

Commercial banks as of today received 88% of loans granted in 2001 back from the farmer.

The Vice-Premier said that another 9% of loans received by farmers last year were prolonged.

Bankers seem to be happy about such kind of cooperation with the farmer and started allocating new loans for the farmer to help the latter with the spring planting campaign.

At the same time Kozachenko is far from being satisfied with the current credit policy of commercial banks in Ukraine. According to him, interest rate for loans was raised by 4% from the first of the year whereas macro indicators for 2001 were quite beneficial i.e. inflation dropped to 6% and National Bank discount rate dropped down to 12,5%. The government plans to find the ways for balancing the situation on the credit market.