Bulgaria's government debt at the end of August 2008 stood at 4,767.8 million euro, including internal government debt of 1,541 million euro and external government debt of 3,226.8 million euro, the Finance Ministry said.

The government debt increased by 62.6 million euro from the previous month in nominal terms. The increase is due mainly to the exchange rate fluctuations.

The government guaranteed debt in August was 586.7 million euro. The increase is due mainly to incoming tranches and exchange rate fluctuations.

At the end of the period under review, the government debt was 15.1 per cent of the GDP, showing an increase of 0.2 percentage points on the month before. The external government debt was 10.2 per cent of the GDP and the internal government debt 4.9 per cent. The government-guaranteed debt was 1.9 per cent of the GDP.

In the structure of the government debt at the end of the period, internal obligations stood at 32.3 per cent and external obligations at 67.7 per cent.

Since the beginning of the year, principal and interest payments amount to 1,603.4 million leva, including 1,080.2 million leva towards the external debt and 523.2 million leva towards the internal debt.

Euro-denominated payments had the biggest share of payments (53.3 per cent), followed by leva (31.5 per cent) and US dollars (10.6 per cent).