Head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov has denied reports that automatic VAT refunding to Metinvest mining and metal group's enterprises was stopped.

"I will officially ask Metinvest about what information they have. Usually VAT is automatically refunded on the 15th day of the month and today the register of Ukraine's treasury has not yet been submitted. There is no failure in the electronic administration system and automatic VAT refunding system," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"I think that someone is spreading the information externally to try to discredit real events that happen," Nasirov said.

He said that the State Fiscal Service has considerably cut its VAT refunding debt. As of late May 2015, the debt was around UAH 21 billion, at present it totals around UAH 15 billion.

"The same situation is happening to Metinvest: in May-June it was UAH 4.5 billion and by the end of the previous months it is around UAH 3.5 billion," he said.

Earlier, Metinvest said that all the enterprises of the group were disconnected from the automatic VAT refunding system in October which could result in their operations being halted. The group believes that VAT could be refunded manually, however the amount of VAT that could be refunded is unknown.