KATHMANDU, June 21: Nepal's total public debt has exceeded Rs 2.4 trillion. According to the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO), by mid-June of the current fiscal year 2023/24, the country’s domestic debt amounted to Rs 1.195 trillion and external debt amounted to Rs 1.28 trillion.

At the beginning of the current fiscal year, in mid-July 2023, the total public debt was Rs 2.299 trillion. In the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, an additional Rs 199 billion in debt has been incurred. Of the total public debt so far, 49.68 percent is domestic debt, and 50.32 percent is external debt.

Of the external debt, Rs 1.071 trillion is owed to multilateral lenders, and Rs 136.74 billion is owed to bilateral lenders. On the domestic front, the largest obligation is from development bonds, amounting to Rs 764.94 billion. The current liability from treasury bills is Rs 412.69 billion, from citizen savings certificates it is Rs 10.75 billion, from foreign employment savings certificates it is Rs 170 million, and from IMF bonds it is Rs 3.91 billion.

For the current fiscal year, the government had set a target to raise a total of Rs 452.75 billion in debt. This included a target of Rs 240 billion in domestic debt and Rs 212.75 billion in external debt. By mid-May last year, the government had already raised Rs 225 billion in domestic debt and Rs 82.67 billion in external debt.

Based on the annual target, the total debt raised so far amounts to 67.96 percent of the target. The PDMO reported that 93.75 percent of the annual target for domestic debt and 38.86 percent of the annual target for external debt have been achieved.

The chief of the PDMO, Dirgha Raj Mainali, informed Republica that out of the debt targeted to be raised within the current fiscal year, Rs 15 billion in domestic debt and Rs 130.07 billion in external debt, totaling Rs 145 billion, remained to be raised till mid-May.

In the current fiscal year, Rs 225.17 billion was allocated for the repayment of the principal on government debt, and Rs 105.38 billion was allocated for interest payments. Within the first 10 months of the fiscal year, Rs 197.32 billion, or 87.83 percent of the allocated budget for principal repayment, and Rs 31.52 billion, or 70.9 percent of the allocated budget for interest repayment, have been paid, according to the PDMO.

By mid-May of the current fiscal year, Rs 227.20 billion has been spent on repaying the principal and interest on domestic debt, while Rs 43.99 billion has been spent on repaying the principal and interest on external debt.

 
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