Private companies have accumulated a foreign debt worth 18.77 billion euros over medium and long term, up by over 16% against the end of 2006, for which they paid interests and instalments worth 2.6 billion euros over a six-month period, according to data from the NBR (The National Bank of Romania).

Over the past year, the private sector's foreign debt with medium and long maturities increased by around six billion euros, with one of the reasons for the rapid growth being the practice of many banks to register abroad credits granted to local companies, due to the costs involved by the mandatory minimum reserves. The 18.77 billion euros reflect a closer to reality image of the companies' debts in foreign currency, given that the NBR statistics indicate a foreign currency debt of just 9.8 billion euros halfway through the year, that is corporate credits in foreign currency registered in the domestic banks' balance sheets.

This puts the total foreign currency debt of private companies at around 28.5 billion euros.

In June alone, the volume of foreign private debt went up by over one billion euros.

The debt service accumulated by private companies went down in the first half of this year, with due payments accounting for 13.8% of the volume, as compared with 25% in 2006.

For debtors with significant revenues in RON, the effort of repaying foreign loans was significantly lower, as the RON's appreciation trend accelerated, despite the increase of the reference interest rate for euro deposits.

Under the circumstances, some bankers are talking about an 85% increase in the volume of outsourced credits or even of a preponderance of credits granted directly from abroad in the first half of the year.

Loans granted directly from abroad by banks, which do not have a local presence are starting to matter, as well.

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