Gazprom is the largest debt issuer of 2003

Gazprom became the largest debt issuer among other developing markets of 2003, reports AK&M.

In the descending year, the gas monopolist placed 151,7 billion ruble (&5,2 billion) bonds and expects to borrow almost the exact same amount in the upcoming year.
The descending year of 2003 has become record-breaking in the amount of borrowed finances on the developing markets. Developing countries worldwide possess a total amount of &88 billion worth of debts. This exceeds last year's mark by 70%. At the same time, total amount of distributed European bonds equaled to $44,5 billion. This is the first time that the market managed to outrun the market of state papers.

In 2003, those were mainly countries of Latin America that managed to increase total amount of debts by three times, up to $17 billion.

Bloomberg remarks that what lie beneath such rapid growth is the overall increase of Russian and Argentinean sovereign ratings as well as the overall improving perspectives of world's economy. Besides, such lowering of credit percentages in the US and Europe made market participants to look for other profitable ways for investing money.

According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), GDP of countries with developing economy has risen 5% on average in the course of 2003. This is twice as much as the overall growth rate of American economy and 10 times as much as economic growth rates of the “Euro zone”.
Next year, forecasts the Fund, economic growth in developing countries will be 5,6% in comparison to 5% in USA and 1,9% in the “Euro zone”.                 

 
 Source: Rosbalt