Alejandro Garcia Padilla, governor of the Puerto Rica’s central bank, Government Central Bank, has announced an executive order on Saturday. The order restricts withdrawal of funds except for the emergency services in a bid to avoid default in $423 debt repayment scheduled on May 1. Analysts have already warned that failure in debt repayment will definitely attract a default status for GDB.
Alejandro Garcia Padilla
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Puerto Rico, the island territory of U.S. is in the crisis due to its surmounting debt. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla repeated the island's debt will lead to moratorium.
Puerto Rico has run into deep economic crisis, with its fiscal agent, the Government Development Bank, running out of reserves to cover even essential services. The government is tilting towards holding on to its debt repayments to sustain the island as a going concern, but their plea to creditors and the Congress to bail them out of the crisis is met with resistance on both fronts.
The measures by Barack Obama-led US government to keep more pressure on lawmakers to bring Puerto Rico out of the economy crisis are facing strong resistance from Republicans. The US Treasury has listed out proposals, for which it sought the support of Congress to enact them to help the US territory Puerto Rico Island in dealing with the ongoing financial crisis.
At a time when creditors of crisis-hit Puerto Rico are gearing up for negotiations on restructuring the Island's debt in smaller alliances, the group of hedge funds was believed to be split off. The hedge funds group comprising over 36 firms is holding a debt of $5.2billion of ailing Puerto Rico. According to unconfirmed news, since Puerto Rico governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said that government's debts were unsustainable, there's surfacing difference of opinion among hedge group members. In the latest development, a group of activists in the Island has started raising voice against the participation of Antonio Weiss in the restructuring plan negotiations as his connections with the Wall Street lead to a conflict of interest.
The five-year restructuring plan proposed for ailing Caribbean island Puerto Rico has become a center of criticism from economists, who question that who shall benefit from this debt deal. Economists argue that the debt plan overstated the financial requirements of the island.
Puerto Rico is jacking up its sales tax in a bid to address its fiscal problems. This is considered a regressive move that could ultimately hurt the country's bottom line and its countless poor people.
Puerto Rico is not intending to cut principal payments to bondholders but to renegotiate debt terms, and officials are set to meet creditors on Monday at the offices of Citi, the head of the island's Government Development Bank Melba Acosta told reporters on Tuesday.
Puerto Rico's planned bond deal of up to $2.9 billion will not happen before early 2015, two finance industry sources briefed on the matter said on Monday.
