Morocco's public foreign debt stood at $19.8 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2010, up from $19.4 billion at the end of 2009 and at its highest since at least 2005, according to the finance ministry data released by Reuters over the weekend.

The public foreign debt is the sum of debt owed by the treasury and guaranteed loans granted by foreign lenders to Moroccan government-owned firms, banks and local councils.

As a percentage of gross domestic product, public foreign debt accounted for 20.7 percent of Morocco's GDP in 2009 against 22 percent in 2005 when it stood at $12.5 billion, the ministry said in a press release.

Morocco plans to disburse $2.1 billion to service foreign debt in 2011, $2.2 billion in 2012, about $2 billion annually in 2013 and 2014, $1.9 billion in 2015, $1.8 billion in 2016 and $2.3 billion in 2017, the data published by the ministry showed.

A total $549 million will be paid to service the foreign debt in the fourth quarter, it added.

Source: Africanews