Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board is aiming to get the commonwealth out of its record bankruptcy by the end of 2021, a move that is expected to help lift the island out of years of economic decline, Bloomberg News reported. The oversight board, which Congress created in 2016 to fix Puerto Rico’s financial crisis, filed a restructuring plan this month with the bankruptcy court to reduce $22 billion of debt. Judge Laura Taylor Swain is set to hear arguments on the restructuring at a July 13 hearing. “We hope that we are on track for Puerto Rico to emerge from bankruptcy, ideally before the end of the year,” David Skeel, the board’s chairman, said yesterday during a public meeting for the panel. Puerto Rico has been in bankruptcy, called Title III, for four years as it has suffered hurricanes, earthquakes, political turmoil and the coronavirus pandemic. Leaving bankruptcy will allow the commonwealth to borrow again in the capital markets and help improve economic growth on the island, Skeel said. “Getting out of bankruptcy will move Puerto Rico to where it’s having access to the capital markets,” he said. “It will make Puerto Rico attractive and an exciting place, I think, for development.” Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority is also in bankruptcy. The board anticipates filing with the court a restructuring plan in early 2022, Natalie Jaresko, the board’s executive director, said during the meeting.
