Foreign debt up US$485 million

[NewsWhore]

The DR's external public debt has increased by US$485 million, a 6.6% increase compared to September 2007, reports Diario Libre. The country's total debt now stands at US$7.85 billion, according to reports filed by the Central Bank in the National Congress. Debt from multilateral organizations contracted, as well as bilateral funding agreements, accounting for 74.7% of the debt while debt with private financial entities totals 25.3%. Of this 25.3%, the greatest proportion corresponds to documented debts in Sovereign Bonds and Brady Bonds. According to this report, the evolution of the public sector foreign debt during the period January - September 2008 shows that for disbursements, the Dominican public sector received US$326.9 million more than in the same period in 2007, reaching US$1.12 billion for that period. "This increase is due to two financial arrangements: One is Petrocaribe with Venezuela that increased substantially as a result of the high oil prices, causing the long term credit over the total of the invoice to go from 50% to 60%; and the disbursement of the last part of the Stand-by arrangement signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2005," says the report. During the period cited in the report, obligations for US$1.06 billion were paid, a 9% reduction in relation to the payments made in 2007, due mainly to a decline in interest rates.

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