Astana. February 8. Kazakhstan Today - Size of the governmental debt in relation to GDP has decreased by 5.1 %. The Minister of Finance Bolat Zhamishev informed today at the session of the board of the ministry on Thursday. "Size of the governmental debt in relation to GDP steadily decreases from 26.5 % in 1999 to 5.1 % in the beginning of 2008," B. Zhamishev said. The Minister informed that in 2006 the governmental external loans for the sum of 13.5 billion KZT were paid off ahead of schedule. As of January 1, 2008 government debt totaled 683.9 billion KZT ($5.7 billion).