Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attends a joint press conference with his Lithuanian counterpart following their meeting on security and Ukraine's bid to become an EU member at the presidential palace in Vilnius on December 8, 2017. (AFP PHOTO)

KIEV, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's foreign debt has increased by 3.3 percent, or about 3.9 billion U.S. dollars, in the first nine months of 2017 amid new international loans, authorities said on Tuesday.

As of Oct. 1, the Ukrainian external debt, a sum of money borrowed overseas by the government and the private sector, reached 117.4 billion dollars, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the country's central bank, said in a statement.

According to the statement, the largest sum of money, about 2.5 billion dollars, was borrowed by the state.

From January to September, the Ukrainian government received 1 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund and about 640 million dollars from the European Union.

In 2018-2020, Ukraine has to repay 20 billion dollars of its state debt, of which 20 percent should be refunded next year.