MOSCOW – Russia may next year have to borrow money from international markets for the first time in a decade, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said yesterday, as the government seeks to conserve cash amid a severe recession.
Russia has paid down most of its foreign debt and last turned to foreign lenders in 2000. Since then, it has stashed windfall oil profits into a reserve fund, accumulating the third-largest foreign currency reserves in the world.
But the global economic crisis and plunging oil prices have taken their toll on Russia’s finances.
The government has spent more than US$200 billion, or about a third of its international reserves, on propping up the ruble since last summer, and is facing a recession for the first time in 10 years.
Many companies are struggling to refinance their debt after international credit markets seized up.
‘We need to look at the possibility of entering the external market in 2010,’ Kudrin told a ministry meeting yesterday, ‘and to hold a roadshow this year, allowing international investors to become better acquainted with our tasks and plans.’
He said it could take ‘several years’ for Russia to pull itself out of the current crisis.
Russia could sell up to US$5 billion in eurobonds, Finance Ministry official Konstantin Vyshkovsky said, according to RIA-Novosti news agency.
-Nampa-AP
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