Monitoring Desk: External debt of Kazakhstan has reached to $168.9 billion, says press service of the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Thursday.
Upward trend of external debt is registered since year 2008 as external debt increased by 74.6 billion dollars in past 10 years.
National Bank of Kazakhstan says that the growth of external debt was due to an increase in intercompany debt (+76.7 billion dollars), associated mainly with the implementation of oil and gas projects by branches of foreign companies in the country.
“There was also an increase in the external debt of the non-financial sector (+26.2 billion dollars) and the government (+10.8 billion dollars) in connection with the issue of Eurobonds and the attraction of loans and borrowings. The external liabilities of the National Bank remained practically unchanged, averaging 0.6 percent of the country’s external debt”, stated BNEWS (Bank News) Kazakhstan.
The ratio of external debt to GDP was 108.9 percent, having improved by 3.5 percent over the period. In its structure, 62% is intercompany debt, 26% – foreign debt of “Other sectors” to unrelated creditors, 8% – state external debt (government and National Bank), 4% – external liabilities of the sector “Banks” (STB and JSC Bank development of Kazakhstan).
For the third quarter of 2017, the country’s external debt grew by one billion dollars, mainly due to: – placement of KazTransGas JSC ten-year Eurobond issue with a total nominal volume of $ 750 million; – Increase in debt of residents on commercial loans (+204.8 million US dollars); – accrual of coupon interest on the current Eurobond issues (+185.7 million dollars).
It is pointed out by National Bank that the external liabilities of the Bank remained almost unchanged, averaging 0.6% of the country’s external debt.
“The external debt of the financial sector decreased by 39.1 billion dollars, mainly due to a reduction in the arrears of the banking sector (including the Development Bank of Kazakhstan) for loans and borrowings by 37.4 billion dollars, a decrease due to the mechanism of minimum reserve requirements, prudential standards, the rule of sufficient capitalization,” notes the information.
