Page 54 - RusRPTApr19

years. Total demand for both issues was high at $12bn. The ministry has budgeted $3bn of net external borrowings for 2019 overall and now could cut the OFZ issuance by about RUB54.2bn, or the amount of €0.75bn worth of Eurobonds raised above the budgeted limit. Analysts surveyed by Vedomosti daily believe that RUB50bn will not be market-moving for OFZ. Recently the Finance Ministry has been holding unlimited weekly OFZ auctions and has managed to sell over RUB50bn per week in February and March. On the weekly Wednesday March 20 auction, which coincided with the Eurobond placement, the ministry still sold RUB61.4bn ($0.96bn) of seven-year bonds to RUB73.3bn demand, as well as RUB10.5bn 15-year bonds.
6.2 Debt
Russia - External debt 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Jan-Jun ‘18
Budget: external debt (USD bn)
2,363.52 2,844.56 2,729.43 2,169.01 2,073.22 2,096.24 1,005.41
Budget: external debt (% GDP)
29.02 31.73 29.07 37.89 39.83 32.84 /
source: CEIC, CBR
In February president Putin boasted that for the first time Russia has enough money in its reserves to cover the external debt dollar for dollar in cash. Since then the gap has widened further. As of the end of 2018 Russia had external debt of $453.7bn but as of March 22 Russia had $483bn in reserves. This cash pile makes it fairly impervious to sanctions.
54 RUSSIA Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com