Nigeria’s foreign debt stands at $9.38 billion, up 40 percent in absolute terms from its last publicly available data of $6.7 billion at the end of March 2013, the Debt Management Office said on Tuesday.
The DMO said local debt was currently at 8.9 trillion naira($55 bln), up 37.1 percent from 6.49 trillion naira at end-March 2013. But the debt-to-GDP ratio is 12.51 percent of its rebased GDP, down from 21 percent at end-March 2013, the DMO said.
Nigeria rebased its economy in April, almost doubling its gross domestic product to more than $500 billion, making it Africa’s top economy.
“This is not an indication that Nigeria can borrow without caution … because our tax GDP ratio is very low,” DMO director general Abraham Nwankwo told reporters.
He said tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was just 6 percent. Nigeria has said it wants to increase the amount it borrows overseas to around 40 percent of all debt over a three to five year period, to take advantage of ultra-loose monetary policy in the West to lower its funding costs.
Foreign borrowing stood at 12 percent of total debt in 2013.
Source: Reuters
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*Domestic Debt Stock of the 36 States and the FCT as at end December, 2012 CBN Exchange rate of 1 USD to 155.73 NGN as at June 30, 2014 was used
