Commercial debt accounts for $16.1bn of external debt in 2021
Data from the Bank of Ghana has disclosed that commercial debts as a component of external debt amounted $16.1 billion in 2021.
This represents 42% of the total external loans of $27.89 billion and marks an increase of $3.38 billion over the previous year.
Commercial debt which is largely from Eurobonds, constituted the largest chunk of the country’s external debt as at the end of November 2021.
It was followed by multilateral and bilateral loans of $8.08 billion and $3.79 billion respectively, which has been declining over the last couple of years due to the country’s position of being a lower middle income country.
Meanwhile, the domestic debt went up by GHS 28.09 billion in the 11 months of 2021 to GHS 179.40 billion in November 2021.
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The banking system held GHS 89.64 billion of the domestic debt in November 2021, GHS 12.72 billion more than what was recorded in December 2020.
The non-banking system constituted GHS 60.05 billion of the domestic debt in November 2021, GHS 12.72 billion more than December 2021.
However, the external debt of the country increased by GHS 23.4 billion, from GHS 141.8 billion at the end of December 2020 to GHS 165.1 billion as of November 2021.
The external debt also constituted 47.9% of the nation’s total public debt in November 2021.
Non-resident investors however held GHS 29.69 billion of the domestic debt in November 2021, compared to the GHS 27.71 billion in December 2021.
The statistics regarding the domestic debt shows that government borrowed significantly on the domestic market in 2021.
Ghana’s total public debt however stood at GHS 344.6 billion in November 2021.
