Recent Economic Trends in the Russian Economy

In Nov 2002, the Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov declared that Russia's external debt reached a figure of US$ 120 billion, which was a decline of nearly US$ 40 billion in just three years. He owed this quick transformation to the government's foreign policy and financial discipline under the leadership of president Putin.
According to the ministry of Finance in Russia, the foreign debt in 2000 was US$143.4 billion and in the year 2001 was US$130.1 billion - a reduction of US$13.1billion. The debt to international financial organizations was given as US$15.2 billion. According to the Bank of Russia statistics, the major part of the debt was part of the former Soviet Union, which amounted to US$61.3 billion.
The external debt in 2000 amounted to US$144.4 billion (credits of US$90.8 billion and securities of US$53.6 billion), which was an improvement over the previous year's debt of US$158.4 billion. The former Soviet Union's debt in 2000 amounted to US$94.5 billion, which was 65.4% of that year's gross external debt.
Exchange Rate
The exchange rate has been consistently increasing since the last five years. In 2002 the exchange rate against the U.S dollar was 30.47. In 2001 the exchange rate set by the Bank of Russia was 30.14, which was an increase of 7% over the previous years exchange rate of 28.16. The exchange rate in 1999 and 1998 against the U.S dollar were 27 and 20.65 respectively.
…