Puerto Rico going down to the wire on $355M debt payment


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rican officials had not decided whether the U.S. island territory can make a looming $355 million bond payment a day before its due date, the governor said Monday.

The officials were in negotiations with creditors and it was still too early to say whether the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank would make a payment due Tuesday, Gov. Alejandro Garcia-Padilla told reporters.

Garcia did not provide details of the negotiations, only that he would make an announcement no later than Tuesday based on the outcome of the talks. "There is more than one alternative and more than one action," he said. "I have to see which is best for Puerto Ricans."

The GDB has been warning for weeks that it was in danger of running out of money by the end of the year and the government has been withholding payments to suppliers and tax rebates to preserve cash flow.

Failure to make the payment would be an ominous turn for the territory. The island has a shrinking economy and a total public debt of $72 billion that Garcia has previously described as unpayable without a restructuring.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Most recent Business stories

Related topics

Business
The Associated Press

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast