Russian government approves joint bank guarantee recognition project with Belarus
MOSCOW. April 24 (Interfax) - The Russian government approved a draft agreement with Belarus on the mutual recognition of bank guarantees for public procurement and instructed the Ministry of Finance to sign it upon reaching an appropriate agreement with the Belarusian side. A government order to this effect has been published on the Legal Information Portal.
According to the draft agreement, bank guarantees issued in Russia and in Belarus for public procurement will be recognized as equal by both states.
The document also indicates what requirements banks must meet if they want to work in the market of bank guarantees in public procurement. Among them, the bank must have an appropriate credit rating, and must be included in the list of organizations entitled to provide bank guarantees for public procurement.
In addition, it is stipulated by the Russian Central Bank and the National Bank of Belarus, respectively that, over the prior six months, these banks should not have applied measures to prevent bankruptcy or attempt financial recovery.
As reported earlier, Alexei Lavrov, Russian Deputy Finance, called the issue of mutual bank guarantee recognition for public procurement one of the main obstacles for the participation of companies from the EAEU member countries in procurement by Russian state customers. Buyers cannot accept the bank guarantees of procurement participants from the EAEU member states for purposes of securing bids, or the execution of contracts.
"This situation is recognized by the Eurasian Economic Commission as a restriction in the field of public procurement for the free movement of goods, services and capital, and as part of the functioning of the EAEU internal market," Lavrov said last year. "To eliminate it, it is planned to prepare and sign agreements on the mutual recognition of bank guarantees in the implementation of state (municipal) procurement. The draft of this document is at a high degree of readiness - in May it was approved by the EEC Board and sent to member states for domestic approval."
In March this year, the EEC announced the preparation of a draft agreement on the mutual recognition of bank guarantees for public procurement and the intention to send it to the EAEU member countries for approval.
"The agreement defines requirements for banks that have the right to issue bank guarantees for public procurement, and approaches to compiling a list of such banks, as well as maintaining a register of bank guarantees," Iya Malkina, assistant chairman of the commission, said in March.
Russia and Belarus have been actively resolving this "banking" issue since 2022, when a pilot project was launched to involve Belarusian banks in the public procurement guarantee system in 2022-2023. Belarusbank Savings Bank, Belvnesheconombank, Belinvestbank Belarusian Bank for Development and Reconstruction, VTB Bank (Belarus) and Minsk Transit Bank initially took part in the project on a voluntary basis.