GUYANA’S public debt (external and domestic) at the end of December 2016 amounted to $330.6B (US$1,601M), reflecting an increase of 4.1 per cent as compared to its 2015 level.
According to the Ministry of Finance’s Public Debt Annual Report for 2016, which was tabled in the National Assembly on Friday, the increase was attributed to disbursements from some multilateral creditors and the Export-Import Bank of China.

“As at the end of December 2016, total debt external debt amounted to $240B (US$1,162.4M) or 72.6 per cent of total public debt, while domestic debt stood at $90.6B (US$438.6M) or 27.4 per cent of total public debt,” the report stated.

This represented an increase of 1.7 per cent when compared to the US$1,143.1M recorded at the end December 2015. This increase was mainly due to disbursements from the Export-Import Bank of China – made during the third and fourth quarters in 2016, for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) Expansion Project.

Although the nominal public debt increased, the total external public debt to GDP ratio declined from 36.1 percent as at the end of December 2015 to 33.7 percent as at the end of December 2016, as a result of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth outstripping the rate of growth of public external debt stock.

External debt comprises two categories: Official and Commercial Creditors. The Official Creditor category is made up of bilateral and multilateral lenders, while the Commercial Creditor category consists of commercial banks, suppliers’ credit and bondholders.

“At end of December 2016, multilateral creditors continued to be the predominant creditor category, accounting for 59.7 per cent of the external debt portfolio, a slight decrease from the 2015 position of 60.6 per cent. Bilateral lenders and commercial lenders represented 38.8 per cent and 1.5 per cent of the public external debt portfolio, respectively.

Guyana has four main external creditors: the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Export-Import Bank of China (China EXIM Bank) and the Venezuela (PDVSA) – which constituted 77.7 per cent of Guyana’s public external debt stock, as at end of December 2016.

The IDB continued to be the dominant creditor, with an average share of 42.0 per cent of the debt portfolio, while the CDB, Guyana’s second largest creditor, accounted for 12.6 per cent of total public external debt, the report stated.
The Export-Import Bank of China followed closely behind the CDB and accounted for 12.5 per cent of external debt, while Venezuela accounted for 10.6 per cent.

The debts to Kuwait and Libya, which are in arrears, remained Guyana’s largest non-Paris Club bilateral creditors. They accounted for 10.1 per cent of Guyana’s public external debt stock at the end of December 2016.

Meanwhile, the public external debt stock by borrower category remained unchanged, in 2016. The central government was the main beneficiary of external financing, accounting for 99.0 per cent of the debt portfolio in 2016. This represents a 1.0 per cent increase over the end of December 2015 position.

On the other hand, the share of public external debt held by the Bank of Guyana decreased by 1.0 per cent due to the IMF debt being fully repaid.
Moreover, it was found that the share of external debt to total public debt decreased marginally from 74.3 per cent at the end of December 2015 to 72.6 per cent at the end of December 2016, while the share of domestic debt to total debt increased from 25.7 per cent to 27.4 per cent of total debt over the same period.

“The increasing share of the domestic debt in Guyana’s total debt portfolio reflects Guyana’s strides to have a diversified portfolio and debt instruments. The total public external debt stock continues to increase and reflects Guyana’s preferences for obtaining concessional loans, whilst domestic debt stock increased as a result of an increase in the issuances of domestic securities (Treasury Bills and Debentures) in 2016.”