Finance Ministry posts plans on debt payments

The volume of Russian state debt payments will be more than $29.3bn in 2004 to 2005, including $18.9bn in foreign debt payments and about $10.4bn in domestic debt payments, a statement of the Russian Finance Ministry says. The statement was released for parliamentary hearings on state debt management held in the Federation Council today. According to the Ministry, Russia will be able to attract no more than $23-24bn on the domestic and foreign markets before the necessary volume of the domestic debt market is reached. The volume of the domestic debt market was calculated based on potential demand and offers of state securities in 2004 and 2005. It will increase to 1 trillion rubles (6.7 percent of the GDP) by the beginning of 2005 and to 1.2 trillion rubles (7.3 percent of the GDP) by the beginning of 2006.