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Russia to pay off foreign debts of former Soviet Union by end of 2017

Xinhua, February 17, 2017 Adjust font size:

Russia will pay off all the USSR foreign debts by the end of this year, with the last tranche to be paid to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the Russian Finance Ministry on Friday.

"The agreement is technically ready for a long time, the two countries have already initialed it. The document needs to be only signed ... There are no difficulties in the payment, the issue will be closed by the summer," reported the Russian newspaper Izvestia citing the Finance Ministry.

Last week, the ministry announced the settlement of the 60.6 million U.S. dollars' Soviet debt to Macedonia, and said the only outstanding debt left from the Soviet era was to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both countries were established after the breakup of Yugoslavia and received the right to reclaim part of the debt of the USSR, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The ministry press-service confirmed that the payment will be made from part of the 2017 budget, which is aimed to settle the debt with the sum of 512.3 billion rubles (8.9 billion U.S. dollars).

The Finance Ministry said the Russian-Bosnian-Herzegovinian intergovernmental agreement will be signed by the ministry on behalf of the government, and the repayment of the debt will be effected within 45 days from the date of its ratification. Endi