Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 2
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend: Kazakhstan's debt to international banks amounted to $4 billion as of July 1, 2014, Kazinform reported Sept. 2 with reference to an official in the financial sector.
"The state (government) debt to the international banks (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Asian Development Bank, European Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank) amounted to $4 billion or 81.3 percent of the total external government debt as of July 1, 2014," Director of the government borrowing department of the Finance Ministry Kuat Akizhanov said in an interview.
The government covers part of the deficit of the national budget and funds priority investment projects in the economy with the external borrowing, according to Akizhanov.
"Currently 21 projects worth $5.2 billion are implemented within the framework of the government's external borrowing. Some 94 percent of these projects are in the road construction sphere, the remaining 6 percent are in health, education and science, public administration sector and environmental protection," he said.
The government's external debts are being directed towards the reconstruction of the roads which form the international transit corridor Western Europe - Western China in several Kazakh regions, as well as at the reconstruction of the Beyneu-Aktau road in the Mangistau region.
Kazakhstan's state debt amounted to 4.833 billion tenge ($26.3 billion) as of July 1, 2014, according to Finance Ministry. The share of government debt in this sum is 99.5 percent.
The level of Kazakhstan's state debt has not posed a threat to the country's development in recent years, Kuat Akizhanov said.
"The ratio of government debt to GDP amounted to 14.4 percent at the beginning of 2011, 12.9 percent at the beginning of 2014, and 12.2 percent as of mid- 2014," he said.
