Bank of Russia estimates actual external debt payments in 2020 Q1–Q2
The estimates posted on the Bank of Russia website suggest that net external debt payments of Russian non-financial organisations may come in at $11.5 billion in 2020 Q1 (14% more than in 2019 Q1) and $13.2 billion in 2020 Q2 (3% less than in 2019 Q2).
The estimated amounts of actual external debt payments differ from the available macroeconomic statistical data by the amount of intragroup payments calculated for the top 40 Russian corporate borrowers in the external market. Such payments tend to be prolonged or refinanced.
According to macroeconomic statistics, the external debt payments of non-financial organisations, including principal and interest, will total $11.5 and $13.5 billion in 2020 Q1 and Q2, respectively.
The slightly higher net payments in April, as compared to the other months, are related to the planned repayments of public debt in the form of Eurobonds by several large non-financial organisations that, in our opinion, possess sufficient foreign currency liquidity to fulfil their obligations.