MOSCOW - Russia's foreign debt should drop to 41 percent of gross domestic product by the end of this year - down from a high of 146 percent four years ago, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Thursday.
The debt made up 49.1 percent of GDP at the end of last year, Kudrin said. Russia's foreign debt remains more than dlrs 140 billion, most of which is left over from the Soviet era. In the wake of a currency collapse and debt default in 1998, the debt rose to 146 percent of GDP, he said. Overall GDP this year is forecast at 10.95 trillion rubles (dlrs 348 billion). Russia paid off 49.5 billion rubles (dlrs 1.5 billion) in foreign and domestic debt in the first three months of 2002, Kudrin said. The foreign debt has been one of Russia's biggest economic headaches over the past decade, and as the economy has rallied over the past three years Russian officials are eager to shed the stigma of heavy-indebtedness.