(Recasts with Maduro comments)

CARACAS, March 16 (Reuters) - Venezuela said on Monday it has paid off its 1 billion euro Global 2015 bond, the first foreign debt maturity in a year of heavy bond payments that have stretched the OPEC nation's coffers amid a period of low oil prices.

President Nicolas Maduro vowed the South American nation would continue to service its debt, and slammed default concerns that have pushed yields to the second highest of any emerging market nation.

"Venezuela in 2015 will continue, despite lower oil prices... to fulfill its international obligations, one by one," he said in a television broadcast on Monday night.

"We'll obtain all the resources, as I have been obtaining them. Oil prices are quite low, around $44, oscillating there," he added.

Venezuela also paid 70 million in interest on the bond on Monday, Finance Minister Rodolfo Marco said earlier on Twitter.

Venezuelan bonds pay an average of 30 percentage points more than comparable U.S. Treasuries, second only to war-torn Ukraine, driven by concerns about the decay of its state-led economic model and a steady decline in foreign reserves.

Maduro blamed the bonds' performance on an "imperialist war" waged by credit rating agencies and a Miami elite intent on bringing down his government.

The government and the state oil company, PDVSA, together will be required to make $8.4 billion in debt payments during the rest of 2015, according to Thomson Reuters data, including a $2.3 billion amortization on a PDVSA bond in November.

Maduro's administration has told the country's food industry that it is limiting dollar disbursements for food imports so that it can pay down foreign debt, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

(Reporting by Caracas newsroom; Writing by Brian Ellsworth and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Bernard Orr)