MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia's foreign debt has grown by $3 billion, or 0.6 percent, since the start of the year, amounting to $521.5 billion as of July 1, documents published by the Central Bank of Russia on Wednesday said.
"The increase in the country's foreign debt resulted from the activated secondary market acquisition by non-residents of sovereign debt in rubles, as well as the accrual of dividends to shareholders by Russian companies," the documents say.
On May 23, Russia announced a return to the international bond market, launching its first Eurobond offering in over two years. VTB Capital, a subsidiary of the Russian VTB Bank financial services corporation, had been designated to carry out the bond operations, with the 10-year bond yield reportedly set to be between 4.65 percent and 4.9 percent per year.
Later in May, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Russia had raised $1.2 billion in the latest foreign Eurobond issue.
