Saturday, April 14, 2007

Macedonia to repay its external debts ahead of schedule

Macedonia will repay 137 million U. S. dollars of its external debts to the World Bank and the European Investment Bank ahead of sechdule, and it will also pay off its entire debts to the International Monetary Fund.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said on Wednesday that along with the 103 million U.S. dollars that it had already paid to the Paris Club in March, Macedonia's external debts repayments have totaled up to 240 million U.S. dollars.

The repayments, which will be funded by Macedonia's foreign currency reserves, account for 20 percent of the debts the country owns to the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, news reaching here from Skopje reported.

Gruevski said that the early repayments of the debts, which are due in 2021, will save his country over 37 million U.S. dollars as interest rates and will move Macedonia from a medium-indebted country to a low indebted one.

He also pointed out that this move show the world that Macedonia's economy is solid and stable and its economic policy safe and sound.

Figures released by the Macedonian government show that the country's debts total at 1.6 billion euros (some 2.1 billion U.S. dollars), among them the external debts are put at 8 billion euros. And the country's foreign currency reserves exceed 1.8 billion euros, Makfax, Macedonia's independent news agency, reported.

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