The costs associated with the servicing of the public debt this year were calculated at 1.819,5 billion lei, by 170.8 million lei lower than the costs assessed for 2017, IPN reports.

The costs of servicing the external debt in 2018 will total 400.7 million lei (about US$22.7m), a decrease of almost US$ 1 million. According to the Ministry of Finance, the reduction is due to the projected appreciation of the national currency against foreign currencies.

The costs of servicing the internal debt will come to 1.418,8 billion lei, including for state securities issued on the primary market (659.9m lei), converted state securities (144.4m lei) and state securities issued to fulfill the payment obligations deriving from state guarantees (617.5m lei).

According to the data presented while examining and adopting the 2018 state budget law in Parliament last November, the state debt balance at the end of 2017 was of 57.363 billion lei, 58% of which represented the external debt, an increase of 6.577 billion lei on the balance logged on December 31, 2016.

The public debt last yearend represented 38.6% of the GDP, up 0.9 percentage points from the end of 2016.