Foreign debt leaps to 72.5bn-euro all-time high

Private companies remain the biggest problem of foreign financing, as they have debt due to for repayment this year and will not be able to refinance in full. The overall debt rose 25.7% last year, to a 72.5 billion-euro new all-time high. The short-term external debt continued to climb in the last quarter of last year, to a record 18.7 billion euros at the end of December, according to data published recently by the NBR (National Bank of Romania). Last year, short-term debt followed an upward trend, apart from the second quarter, when it saw a slight decline, breaking an over three-year period of continuous growth. Banks and private companies account almost exclusively (98%) for short-term loans attracted from abroad. The continued upward trend of short-term debt was mainly prompted by the increase in short-term funding (for periods of less than a year) attracted by Romanian banks, by almost 2 billion euros, to 10.58 billion euros. Whereas sums attracted by banks rose, funding attracted by companies saw a decline against September, from 9.37 billion euros, to 7.7 billion euros.