Debts owed international creditors as a result of Ghana’s active play in international capital markets (ICM) accounted for 42.1 per cent of the country’s total external debt stock.
In monetary terms, this translates into some $10.21 billion of the total $24.27 billion external debts recorded at Q3 2020.
International capital market debts stood at 37.9 per cent of total external debt for the same period in 2019.
Ghana’s total external debt stock at the end of the third quarter of 2020, stood at $24.27 billion.
This represented an increase of $162.26 million (0.67%) over the stock position of $24.10 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2020.
The $24.27 billion external debt stock at Q3 2020 also represented a significant increase of $4 billion (19.81%) above the level of $20.25 billion recorded in the same period of 2019.
The rise in the country’s total external debt for the period under review, according to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) in its Quarterly Bulletin for 2020 was driven mainly by the Eurobond issuance in February 2020 and the $1 billion IMF Rapid Credit Facility coupled with net transactions (disbursements and amortizations).
The BoG giving a breakdown of the share of the country’s external debt as owned by creditor groups, noted that debts owed multilateral institutions such as the IMF and World Bank totalled $7.92 billion by Q3 2020.
The debt figure registered an increase of $117.31 million (1.5%) compared to the level of $7.81 billion recorded at the end of Q2 2020. The stock position showed a significant rise of $1.49 billion (23.21%) above the level of $6.43 billion recorded for the same period in 2019.
Hence, multilateral debt accounted for 32.7 percent of Ghana’s total debt stock at the end of Q3 2020.
Bilateral debts on the other hand, amounted to $1.23 billion by the end of Q3 2020 representing a 5.1 percentage points share of total external debt. Bilateral debts went up by $27 (2.3%) above the stock position of $1.20 billion recorded at the end of Q2 2020.
Commercial debts at the end of September 2020 totalled $2.28 billion and constituted 9.4 percent of the total external debt stock. This was $57.87 million (2.6%) higher than the level of $2.22 billion recorded in the second quarter and went up by $114.08 million (5.3%) above the level of $2.17 billion recorded at the end of Q3 2019.
With regards to the International Capital Market, debts owed stood at $10.21 billion representing the highest percentage share of 42.1 percent of the total external debt stock as at end September 2020 compared to 37.9 percent for the same period in 2019.
The stock level was $2.50 billion (32.8%) above the level of $7.69 billion recorded in the third quarter of 2019.
Other concessional debts, the Central Bank notes, totalled $1.62 billion at the end of the third quarter and constituted 6.7 percent of the external debt stock. This also indicated a decline of $26.69 million (1.6%) compared with the previous quarter’s position of $1.65 billion.
Debts owed to Export Credit Agencies, according to the BoG amounted to $981.22 million at the end of the third quarter of 2020 and comprised 4 percent of the total external debt stock.
In total, Ghana’s external debt stock at the end of Q3 2020 represented 35.9 percent of total GDP compared with 30.8 percent for the same period in 2019.
