The country’s per capita debt has now reached Rs 57,608

KATHMANDU, August 28: Nepal’s public debt has reached 40.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), with the government relying more on borrowed money to meet its financial obligations due to low revenue collection amid impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The records with Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) show that the government as of last fiscal year end took loans of Rs 1.72 trillion, out of which Rs 927.92 billion was the foreign debt. The share of foreign loans in the total debt stood at 21.8 percent.

According to NRB, the government took loans of over Rs 301 billion in 2020/21 alone. Based on an estimated 30 million population, the country’s per capita debt has now reached Rs 57,608.

With heavy reliance on borrowed money of late, the country’s debt has nearly tripled in the last five and a half years. Last year, the annual growth rate in public debt was 21.1 percent. The rate was at a whopping 36.2 percent in 2019/20, the largest in the past three and a half decades.

The country’s debt liability was rising at a slow pace until fiscal year 2015/16. However, it surged with the country needing to generate massive resources for post-earthquake reconstruction. In the past two years, it has been escalating with a need to purchase vaccines and medical equipment to fight against the pandemic, on top of the government’s inability to check unproductive spending, said experts.

 
• public_debt
 
• GDP
 
• soaring_per_capita_debt