Foreign debt up to EUR 1bn Bulgaria’s gross foreign debt has risen by EUR 1.03 billion for the first four months of the year to EUR 11.36 billion at the end of April, Bulgarian National Bank data show. As of end-December 2003, external debt stood at EUR 10.33 billion. One of the reasons for the increase is exchange rate fluctuation, which accounted for 27% of the total rise in debts of the public and private sectors. For the first four months of the year the common currency has depreciated by nearly 5% to the US dollar. Another reason is the surge in private sector debt to EUR 4.03 billion, compared to EUR 3.17 billion at the end of 2003. This accounted for 27.1% of the debt increase. At the end of April, public foreign debt amounted to EUR 7.33 billion, compared to EUR 7.16 billion at the end of 2003. Despite the rise in absolute terms, gross foreign debt declined 0.1% in relative terms to 58.5% of GDP. That was mainly due to the decline in public debt from 40.7% to 37.8% of GDP at the end of April. Private debt, however, went up from 18% to 20.8% of GDP. Bulgaria paid a total of EUR 422.5 million on debt servicing in January-April, or 2.2% of GDP. Public debt payments made up EUR 308 million of the total amount, private debt payments, EUR 114.5 million. Fresh credits and deposits received in the first four months of 2004 totalled EUR 710.2 million, as much as EUR 541.8 million of it went to the private sector. <