According to the recently passed budget, at the end last year, Guyana’s external debt crossed the US$1 billion mark, reaching US$1.04 billion. At the end of 2009, the country’s external debt had been pegged at US$933.04 million.
By 1992, Guyana’s external debt had reached US$2.1 billion. In 2007, Guyana benefited from US$467 million in debt write-off from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and subsequently benefited from debt write-off from other countries.
Based on the 2011 budget, lending from the multilateral agencies is expected to increase to US$634.5 million an increase from US$588.09 million in the previous year. Loans from the IDB are slated to increase to US$402 million at the end of this year from US$316.9 million at the end of last year.
Bilateral credit is slated to increase by the end of 2011 to US$533.4 million. At the end of last year, bilateral credit had been pegged at $434.4 million, up from the US$375.2 million recorded in 2009.
Loans from Paris Club Creditors are expected to reduce to US$49.2 million down from the US$51.8 million recorded at the end of 2010.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, during his budget speech, said that the government continues “to use diplomatic and other efforts to reduce debts owing to bilateral non-Paris Club creditors” in keeping with Guyana’s Paris Club obligations.
This year’s budget projects increased credit being received from non-Paris Club creditors. Total credit received from these countries is projected to increase from US$382.6 million to US$484.2 million by the end of this year. Credit from Venezuela is expected to increase from the US$187.6 million recorded at the end of 2010 to US$248.6 million by the end of this year. Credit from China is set to increase from the US$44.6 million at the end of last year to US$73.4 million by the conclusion of 2011.
Singh had said that “external debt service payments amounted to US$28.8 million by the end of 2010 as repayment of the principal owed to several creditors including Venezuela and the International Monetary Fund commenced.”
The finance minister said that notwithstanding Guy-ana’s “robust economic performance in recent years,” it is still a developing country with “significant developmental needs and investments to be made if key goals—including the Millennium Development Goals— are to be met. “Government will spare no effort in mobilizing as much development support and assistance as we possibly can from willing partners, and at the most concessional terms available, to support our development efforts,” he said. However, Singh said that among some of the current partners, “the landscape for accessing development assistance appears to have changed dramatically”. Consequently, he said, “reliability and predictability of development assistance is seriously jeopardized.”
Meanwhile, in the case of domestic debt, Singh said the stock increased by 15.4 per cent to $100.5 billion, reflecting a higher issuance of treasury bills to contain the growth in liquidity. According to him, “the total stock of treasury bills increased by 24.7 per cent to $93.2 billion, mainly due to higher issuance of 364-day bills for monetary operations, with the commercial banks accounting for a 70 per cent share, down from 73 per cent in 2009. Total domestic debt service increased by 15.1 per cent to $4.9 billion due to higher principal payments associated with the redemption of debentures,” Singh said.
Three Mondays ago, Singh unveiled the $161.4 billion budget—the largest in the country’s history. After two weeks of debate following by the consideration of estimates, this budget was passed by the National Assembly on Thursday last.
