Kazakhstan's state debt rises

ASTANA. Nov 14 - Kazakhstan's state debt grew 19.7% in January-September to 138.8 billion tenge (127.85 tenge/$1 on Nov. 14), the Kazakh Finance Ministry said in a press release.

The debt grew mainly on account of a rise in government domestic debt and the National Bank's debt, the release said.

Guaranteed state debt totaled 80.3 billion tenge as the beginning of October, up 1 billion tenge from the start of 2006.

Domestic and external government debt rose by 57.6 billion tenge to 593.1 billion tenge during the nine months. "Government debt continued to decrease as a share of GDP, which is a positive result produced by high prices for Kazakh export goods," the release said.

The Finance Ministry issued 142.3 billion tenge worth of state securities and redeemed 68.9 billion tenge worth in the nine months.