Ministry of Finance: 81% of Azerbaijan's foreign debt portfolio in foreign currency

Over the past 3-4 years, Azerbaijan has reduced the share of foreign currency in the external public debt from 95% to 81%.

Report informs, the director of the Agency for Management of Public Debt and Financial Obligations under the Ministry of Finance Azer Mursagulov said.

“One of the risk criteria associated with the management of Azerbaijan's public debt is the share of foreign currency in the external debt portfolio. In 2018, 95% of our external debt portfolio was in foreign currency, with a very small portion in local currency. One of our main goals was to bring it down to 85% in the medium term. Today, 81% of our external debt portfolio is in foreign currency. We are moving in this direction, already in the medium term, it is planned to work on its further reduction.

Another risk parameter is the presence of debt with variable interest rates. Some debts are presented with fixed interest rates and some with variable interest rates depending on changes in market conditions. In 2018, floating-rate debt accounted for 65% of the debt portfolio. Currently, we have reduced this figure to 35%, and our goal is to reduce it to a minimum,” he said.