Skopje, February 1st
Macedonia's state debt in 2009 amounted to EUR 1,6 billion, whereas the average interest rate was 2.6 percent, said Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski at Monday's press conference.
According to him, the level of the state debt by the end of 2009 was 24.7 percent of the GDP, which represents one of the lowest in Europe, and considered a low level of country's indebtedness.
"Taking into consideration the difficulties we faced in 2009 and indebtedness worldwide, I believe that last year's state debt represents an exceptionally good result for the country. This coincides with the assessments of IMF and other financial institutions, which say that Macedonia is one of the few countries that still have fiscal room for indebtedness if necessary, because the level of the public and state debt is low. This results from the favourable economic years - 2007 and 2008 - when we conducted early payments of over EUR 350 million debts towards the IMF, World Bank and several other financial institutions", underlined FinMin Stavreski.
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