In compliance with its borrowing policy, the Russian government is taking measures to replace foreign debt with domestic borrowings.
A total of 32.33 billion rubles of government securities (about $1.2 billion) were issued at par in August, an increase of 120% on July's figure, the ministry said.
The issue of permanent income federal loan bonds (OFZ-PD) fell 11.8% to 8.79 billion rubles ($327.9 million) at par, whereas the issue of fixed coupon-income government saving bonds (GSO-FPS) grew 180% to 14 billion rubles ($522 million) at par in August, the ministry said.
The Finance Ministry spent 6.96 billion rubles ($259 million) on coupon payments in August compared with 3.51 billion rubles ($131 million) in July.
The Finance Ministry earlier said foreign debt will account for 60.2% of Russia's total state debt in 2006, with domestic debt at 39.8%. The proportion of foreign debt will fall to 53.5% in 2007, to 47.2% in 2008, and to 42.6% in 2009.
