The main thing is that the foreign debt of Russia isn’t huge and the payments will be effected relatively smoothly.
Photo: Pavel Soloviev
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Not Scared of Foreign Debt
According to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), the country’s foreign debt equaled $459.6 billion as of January 1, 2008. Of that amount, the banks accounted for $163.7 billion (35.6 percent), non-banking sector - $249.6 billion (54.3 percent), and the government and the CBR covered the remainder.
Some $134.5 billion (29.3 percent) of the debt matures this year, $65.4 billion (14.2 percent) is due in 2009 and the loans of $217.9 billion (47.4 percent) have the payment term of more than two years. Foreign loans of $15.9 billion were to be called for, the amount of $12.6 billion had the undefined payment schedule and there was no schedule whatsoever for $13 billion (mostly preferred stocks of Russia’s enterprises owned by non-residents).
The main thing is that the foreign debt of Russia isn’t huge and the payments will be effected relatively smoothly. The key difficulty could be raising the loans for refinancing purposes, as well as the renewal of net capital outflow and liquidity problems of Russia’s banks.
The payment was to reach $51.3 billion in the first quarter, lowering in the second and the third quarters to surge anew in the fourth one. In 2009, the payment dynamics will be similar to this year’s one, although the definite amount will differ materially. A sizeable portion of debt of Russia’s companies and banks is short-term, i.e. the loans to be paid off by the end of next year are yet to be borrowed.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 19, 2008
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