China's Foreign Debt Exceeds 151 Billion U.S. Dollars

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) announced Monday that by the end of 1999, the outstanding amount of China's foreign debt was equivalent to 151. 83 billion U.S. dollars, increasing 5.79 billion U.S. dollars or four percent over the end of the previous year.

According to the statistics, of the total amount of foreign debt, medium- and long-term debt was 136.65 billion U.S. dollars, increasing 7.95 billion U.S. dollars over the previous year; short- term debt was 15.18 billion U.S. dollars, down 2.16 billion U.S. dollars.

In 1999 China borrowed 30.05 billion U.S. dollars in new foreign debt, and paid 30.99 billion U.S. dollars in principal and interest.

Of the total foreign debt of 151.83 billion U.S. dollars, 47.3 billion U.S. dollars was sovereignty debt borrowed by ministries and departments under the State Council, up 13.6 percent; the outstanding amount of foreign debt borrowed by financial institutions was 40.9 billion U.S. dollars, down 2.6 percent; while that borrowed by overseas-invested enterprises was 47.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 4.6 percent; that borrowed by domestic enterprises was 14.71 billion U.S. dollars, down 5.1 percent; and all other kinds of foreign debt totaled 1.62 billion U.S. dollars, basically remaining unchanged.

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