Russian government to reduce the volume of foreign borrowings

By the end of this year the government needs to reduce the amount of foreign borrowings to 60 per cent of the GDP, deputy prime minister and finance minister Alexei Kudrin told an enlarged session of the Finance Ministry on Monday while delivering the main report. According to him, this has to be done to join the group of countries with the acceptable level of foreign debt. This can raise the country's investment attractiveness. Kudrin also said that in 2000 the government had managed to reduce the domestic debt by 20 billion roubles (with one US dollar equalling about 28 roubles). In servicing the state foreign debt, the Finance Ministry sought to give up foreign borrowings. Russia's foreign debts totalled $144.4 billion as of January 1, 2001. As compared to January 1, 2000, it dropped by $14 billion, Kudrin said.

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