On Russia’s public sector debt

The article examines the problem of comprehensive official reporting on public sector debt. It considers the IMF toolkit for public debt statistics, the peculiarities of its practical use and inherent methodological issues influencing the quantitative assessments. Estimates of the total liabilities and liquid assets for the components of the Russian public sector are given, which show, inter alia, the increase of the total liabilities of the largest state-owned enterprises (as a share of GDP) since 2016, first of all, due to the growing share of stateowned banks in the banking sector. The importance of regular monitoring and review of the public sector liabilities and assets is substantiated.