BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 16. The external public debt share in Azerbaijan's total public GDP is planned to be lowered, Azer Mursagulov, director of the Agency for Managing Public Debt and Financial Obligations under the Azerbaijani Finance Ministry, said, Trend reports.
According to Mursagulov, over the past few years, Azerbaijan has reduced the share of foreign currency in the external public debt from 95 to 81 percent.
He reminded that in 2018, 95 percent of the external debt portfolio fell on foreign currency, and only a small share - national currency.
"One of our main goals was to reduce it to less than 85 percent in the medium term. Today, 81 percent of Azerbaijan's debt portfolio is in foreign currency," the agency’s head said. "In the medium term, it’s planned to further reduce the share of foreign currency in the public debt."
Mursagulov also noted that public debt has interest rates.
"Some loans are provided by financial institutions at fixed interest rates, but loans from other financial institutions may be at floating interest rates (rates depend on market conditions)," he explained.
"In 2018, 65 percent of Azerbaijan's debt obligations had a floating interest rate. Now the figure for these rates has been reduced to 35 percent, and we are working on an even greater reduction to fix this level," added the director.