Russia to repay $1.5bn for foreign debt in March

In March 2003, Russia is to repay $1.513bn for its foreign debt, a report of the foreign debt department of the Russian Finance Ministry says.

This figure contains $560.2m in the repayment and servicing of the debt to official creditor countries, banks and companies, including $491.502m in debt repayment and $68.729m in debt servicing. Payments to international financial organizations will amount to $189.44m this March, including $159.344m in debt repayment and $30.1m in debt servicing. Coupon payments on Eurobonds will reach $763.427m this month.

Over the first two month of 2003, Russia repaid about $3.852bn for its foreign debt. In total, it is to repay about $17.3bn for the foreign debt this year. As of the beginning of 2003, Russia's debt amounted to about $144bn, or 41 percent of the GDP. At the same time, Russia's foreign debt was about 33 percent of the GDP as of January 1, 2003.