Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh yesterday tabled two orders in Parliament seeking the lifting of the ceilings for domestic and external debt.
The proposed increase in the debt ceilings aims to avert the dependency on utilising the Consolidated Fund overdraft as a means of financing, which was done under the APNU+AFC administration, a release from the Ministry of Finance said.
Singh tabled two orders in Parliament proposing adjustments to the two ceilings. It was proposed that the domestic public debt ceiling be increased to $750 billion, up from $500 billion from its last revision. Meanwhile, a new external borrowing ceiling of $900 billion was proposed, after its last increase to $650 billion.
“Given Guyana’s economic outlook, these revisions to the external and domestic public debt ceilings do not threaten Guyana’s long-term debt sustainability. Noteworthy, for more than one and a half decades Guyana has maintained a robust debt sustainability position. This favourable outcome was due to the PPP/C’s administration’s strong debt management abilities. This administration focuses on debt management policies and practices that hinge on a strategy that prioritises mobilising development financing at the lowest cost, within prudent risk parameters.
“Guyana’s history serves as a testimony of this administration’s ability of achieving and maintaining sustainable debt levels. When this Government took office in 1992, Guyana was one of the world’s most heavily indebted countries, however, after several rounds of successful debt relief initiatives coupled with the Government’s continuous efforts to strengthen the domestic economy, Guyana’s debt became sustainable in 2006. Over the last three decades, Guyana’s debt has declined from 617 percent of GDP (more than six times the economy) at end-1991, to a remarkable 24.6 percent (about a quarter of the economy) at end-2022. Additionally, when this Government took office in 1992, about 90 cents of every dollar of revenue earned was used to make debt service payments, today this has been significantly reduced to 7 cents of every dollar”, the Ministry of Finance release said..
