Azerbaijan, Baku, March 9 /Trend I. Khalilova/
As of January 2013, Azerbaijan's external national debt reached $5.7 billion, which is 10.6 percent of the GDP, the government's report as of 2012 submitted for discussion to the parliament said today.
External borrowings of the country according to the agreements signed with international financial institutions reach $11.7 billion, comprising 21.7 percent of GDP.
"A maximum limit on external public borrowings was ensured in 2012," the report says.
Some $148.9 million were allocated from the national budget for repayment of external loans.
The loans worth $ 1.2 billion were mastered within the signed agreements in 2012.
Azerbaijan allocated 61.6 million euro to Serbia last year to finance the project of constructing the highway sections - Lzhig-Bolzhkovchi, Bolzhkovchi-Takovo and Takovo-Prelzhina. In general, the Azerbaijani government has allocated 300 million euro for a period of 25 years with a three-year grace period at an annual rate of four percent per annum for the project implementation.
As of January 1, 2013, the amount of domestic public debt amounted to 3.046.3 billion manat.
"Around 141.7 million manat were transferred to the state budget to accelerate the development of the country's financial sector and the securities market as its part, to cover the budget deficit and, ultimately, to strengthen the financial stability from selling the state bonds," a statement said.
A limit on external borrowing in the state budget for 2012 was set at 2 billion manat and 1 billion manat for domestic borrowing.
Until 2005, the limit for external debt was set at $ 200 million. This limit was initially doubled in 2006 due to the necessity of borrowing for large-scale projects and later, as a result of the revision of the budget forecasts, it was tripled to $ 1.2 billion. In 2007, the figure hit 1.2 billion manat. The government kept the limit of external debt at 2.5 billion manat for the next three years. The limit on foreign borrowing was set at 2.3 billion manat in the state budget for 2011.
A borrowing limit in the state budget in 2013 reduced by 62.5 percent compared to last year.
The borrowing limit decreased by 1.3 billion manat to a level of 750 million manat in 2013 compared to 2012 to execute the instructions of the country's leadership to optimize the ratio of foreign loans to the country's GDP.
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The work will be continued to manage the internal and external debts, the timely implementation of commitments on the drawn loans in 2013. The measures are envisaged to repay the loans, mainly at the expense of the organizations which have taken credit.
Around 781 million manat will be allocated from the budget-2013 to serve the public debt, which is a relatively large amount compared to previous years. This is connected with the fact that along with the repayment of the main debt, the process of paying interest on some loans will start. Earlier Azerbaijan received loans from international financial institutions (especially the World Bank) on favorable terms. But at present, these organizations make changes in the schedule of repayment of loans by changing the country's financial status and the growth of GDP per capita.
The official exchange rate is 0.7849 AZN/USD on March 9.