WINDHOEK, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's government debt stock saw a significant increase in the fiscal year ending September 2023, despite a decrease in government loan guarantees, the central bank reported Friday.
According to the Bank of Namibia's (BoN) December 2023 quarterly bulletin, the government's debt stock accounted for 64.8 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by September 2023, marking a 2.3 percentage points decrease from the previous year.
This decline was attributed to a higher quarterly GDP increase compared to the rise in central government debt.
In nominal terms, central government debt surged by 9.7 percent, reaching 148.8 billion Namibia dollars (about 9.9 billion U.S. dollars).
The central bank noted that this rise was driven by increased issuances of treasury bills and internal registered stock, along with a surge in external debt due to disbursements from an African Development Bank loan in December 2022 and a loan from the German state-owned development bank KfW in March 2023.
Meanwhile, the BoN reported a yearly decline in the central government's total loan guarantees to 3.9 percent of GDP from 5 percent of GDP a year earlier.
"The decline was due to repayments of foreign loans guaranteed by the government in the transport and communication sectors as well as the development finance institutions coupled with repayment of domestic loans, which were guaranteed in the fishing, energy, tourism, and transport sectors," the central bank said. ■
