Italy asks banks to give breaks on loans

ROME, July 8 (Reuters) - The Italian government is asking the country's banks to agree a voluntary moratorium by August on companies' most pressing loans, Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Wednesday.

In exchange the government would review tax rules on bad loans so as to make them more favourable to banks, Tremonti said in a speech at the annual meeting of the Italian Banking Association.

"The substance of a common initiative could take the form of a moratorium on the most pressing expiries of credits to businesses," he said.

The centre-right government has repeatedly claimed that Italian banks are failing to lend to smaller companies that have been hit by the deep economic downturn.

The government has set up a bond-based scheme to provide 10 billion to 12 billion euros to banks to shore up capital and assure lending to small and mid-sized companies.

Italy's biggest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI), said on Friday it foresaw up to 60 billion euros in new loans to small and mid-sized enterprises over the next three years. [ID:nL3607596] (Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; writing by Danilo Masoni; editing by Jon Loades-Carter)