Belarus plans to refinance 75% of external govt debt obligations in 2025 - Finance Ministry

MINSK. Aug 21 (Interfax) - Belarus' Finance Ministry plans to attract external resources in 2025 in order to refinance 75% of external government debt obligations, Belarusian Finance Minister Yury Seliverstov said.

"Regarding our external obligations to pay off the government debt for the next year, these are planned figures, and the amounts are quite large. We need to attract resources on the domestic market, as well as operate on the external market to refinance the debts. We think that we could work to refinance about 75% of the debts," the BelTA state news agency quoted Seliverstov as saying.

The Finance Ministry has not published data on the state of external government debt since 2022.

Belarusian National Bank data indicate that government debt totaled $16.86 billion as on April 1, 2024, down 0.5% in the first quarter, within the structure of gross external debt. Specifically, attracted loans and credits totaled $14.17 billion, down 0.7%, and government debt securities totaled $2.69 billion, up 0.6%, respectively.