Turkey and its firms face repayments of nearly $3.8 billion (£2.99 billion) on foreign currency bonds in October as the country struggles with a plunging lira that has lost more than a third of its value since the start of the year. Emerging market (EM) investors have been worried about Turkey’s external debt burden and the ability of its firms and banks to repay after a boom in hard currency issuance to help finance a rapidly growing economy.

For companies, the cost of servicing foreign debt has risen by a quarter in lira terms in the past two months alone, according to Reuters.

“Turkey’s external financing requirements are large,” Jason Daw at Societe Generale wrote in a note to clients. “It has the highest FX-denominated debt in EM and short-term external debt of $180 billion (£141.6 billion)and total external debt of $460 billion (£361.9 billion).”

Calculations by Societe General show that Turkish firms will face $1.8 billion (£1.4 billion) of hard-currency denominated bonds maturing by the year-end while $1.25 billion of government bonds will come due. Additionally, a total of $2.3 billion (£1.81 billion) in interest must be paid.

The heaviest month for repayments is October, when $3 billion (£2.36 billion) in principal and $762 million (£599.5 million) interest are due.

“Principal and interest payments should be closely watched to year end – it is 25 percent more costly for the corporate sector to repay their obligations compared to June given FX depreciation,” Daw wrote.