Zee Beam News

MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign debt has declined 8.5% to $47.6 billion as of September 1, the economics ministry said Friday. As of January 1, 2007, the country's debt stood at $52 billion, the ministry said in an economic monitoring report published on its Web site. The report said Russia had repaid its $80.7 million debt to Portugal, bringing the state foreign debt net repayment to some $145 million in August. The state internal debt reached approx. 1.2 trillion rubles ($48 billion) in late August. This means that the internal debt is higher than the external one, the economics ministry reported. Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has called the reduction of foreign debt to 9% of the country's gross domestic product a success of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. He said one could count countries with a similar showing on the fingers of one hand.