To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimate of the total value of the extended debt of the Soviet Union owed to banks and other commercial organisations within the EC.

Precise data are not available. The total amount of the former Soviet Union's hard currency debt is in excess of $60 billion, of which some $38 billion is owed to EC creditors. Most of this debt represents guaranteed and non-guaranteed bank loans. German banks are the largest creditors—$19·4 billion according to the Bundesbank—though much of this lending has been guaranteed either by the German Government or by the German export credit agency.

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of the total external debt of the Soviet Union is owed to banks and commercial organisations in (a) the United Kingdom and (b) Germany.

The total claims of domestic German banks on the Soviet Union at the end of June 1991 were DM 35·2 billion—$19·4 billion—according to data provided by the Bundesbank. The total contractual claims of United Kingdom registered banks—including those of United Kingdom subsidiaries of foreign owned banks—were $2·9 billion at the same date. Assuming Soviet external debt to have been in the region of $60 billion in mid-1991—although there are some higher estimates—debt to United Kingdom and German banks would have constituted 4·8 and 32·3 per cent. respectively of total Soviet external debt. In both cases, much of the bank lending was guaranteed by Governments and export credit agencies.