Vietnam sovereign debt rose to 32.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, an increase of 16.7 percent from the end of 2009, reported the Vietnam Ministry of Finance (MOF) on Tuesday.
The total amount was equivalent to about 42.2 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) of 104 billion U.S. dollars.
Of the total, the government debt accounted for about 27.9 billion U.S. dollars, while the remaining 4.6 billion U.S. dollars by local governments and state-owned companies, the report said.
Vietnam's leading creditors in 2010 were the governments of Japan, France, Russia and Germany, and the International Development Association, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Bondholders held 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, over 1 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year.
According to MOF, the country repaid 1.67 billion U.S. dollars to its creditors in 2010, up 30 percent year-on-year, and expects to repay 1.3 billion U.S. dollars this year.
During 2012-2016, Vietnam's debt payments will total nearly 8.4 billion U.S. dollars in principal, fees and interest, even if the country takes out no further foreign loans, which will be a potential challenge to the government, MOF said.