OREANDA-NEWS. The stock of outstanding external debt of the Russian Federation, including public and private sector external debt, grew in the 1st Half of 2016 by $3 billion or by 0.6% reaching $521.5 billion as of June 30, according to the data from the Estimate of External Debt of the Russian Federation published on the website of the Bank of Russia.

The increase of the external debt of the country resulted from more active nonresidents' purchases of ruble-denominated sovereign debt instruments in the secondary market. Declaration of shareholder dividends by Russian companies, which are reflected as companies’ foreign liabilities before actual payments are made, has also contributed to the growth of the external debt.

The composition of external debt continued to be dominated by private sector liabilities, of which one third was accounted for by banks and two thirds – by other sectors of the economy.