Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Wednesday that Russia will repay up to US$15 billion (¤12.47 billion) in foreign debt ahead of schedule in 2006, the Interfax news agency reported. That would be as much as US$5 billion (¤4.16 billion) more than he had indicated at an International Monetary Fund meeting last weekend. Kudrin told an investment conference in Moscow that Russia would repay US$3 billion to US$4 billion in debt ahead of schedule this year, as well, Interfax reported. Earlier this year, the government already paid some US$15 billion of its US$43 billion in debts to the Paris Club of sovereign creditors. It is using money from a stabilization fund fed by windfall oil revenues.
