President Igor Dodon recognized the Transnistria’s debt for natural gas as country’s total debt worth 6.5 billion to the Gazprom.

At his meeting with the Russian enterprise leadership on Tuesday within his official visit to Moscow, Dodon said that Chisinau is studying possible variants of repaying the mainland Moldova’s debt that reaches around US$500 million.

“There are certain preliminary plans for resolving this situation. The mainland Moldova’s debt is of nearly US$500 million, while Transnistria’s debt – nearly US$6 billion. We have to understand that the whole debt – more than US$6.5 million – is Moldova’s total debt”, Dodon said.

According to him, Gazprom enterprise does not divide the Transnistria’s debt from Moldova’s total debt.

“As for the mainland Moldova debt: we proposed sources for covering it back in 2008 and we will return to this scheme. It includes a part of assets, which are today used by Moldovagaz, but they have not been included in this company’s authorized capital”, the President said, adding that Moldova cannot resolve the problem with Transnistria’s debt at the current stage.

“This issue should be considered in the general context of Transnistria’s settlement”, Igor Dodon said.

Infotag’s dossier: Gazprom owns 50% of shares plus one share in the Moldovagaz joint-stock company. Since the moment of company foundation, local authorities have laid local gas pipelines, which were not included in Moldovagaz balance. According to preliminary assessment, their cost is estimated at 1.5-1.8 billion lei, which was proposed to be included in Moldovagaz authorized capital and raise the Moldova’s share in the company, which accounts for around 34%, at the amount of this sum, or to repay current debts for gas to Gazprom.

Source: Infotag