Foreign debt surges to $82.85bn

Business Report :
Bangladesh’s foreign debts rose to $82.85 billion as of the third quarter (January-March) of the current fiscal year 2022-23 as government borrowing increased year on year.
Out of the amount, public debt had increased to $68.76 billion till March this fiscal year while the private-sector credits dropped, official data showed.
The government had to spend $2.94 billion on debt servicing in the last fiscal year 2021-22, in a rise from $2.62 billion in the previous fiscal for medium- to long-term loans (MLTs) and other short-term loans of public entities.
The foreign debt in the public sector (government) in the Q3 (July-March) of the outgoing fiscal had grown by $5.25 billion from last fiscal’s total at $63.52 billion, Economic Relations Division (ERD) provisional statistics showed.
Meanwhile, the private-sector debt as of March this fiscal decreased to $14.08 billion from $16.42 billion in the last calendar year, 2022, as per Bangladesh Bank (BB) data.
Out of the government’s $68.76 billion debt till last March, its outstanding MLTs were recorded at $61.32 billion and the guaranteed debt was $7.92 billion, the official statistics showed.
Meanwhile, government borrowing has been growing year on year as it finds out higher funds from the budgetary support to improve the foreign-exchange-reserve situation and from project aid for implementing larger and megaprojects.
Till previous FY21, public debts, including MLTs and the guaranteed ones, had been recorded at $60.15 billion, the ERD data showed.
The government debt rose to $63.52 billion at the end of last FY22, and $68.76 billion till March this FY23, the ERD provisional data showed.
The foreign debt is likely to increase further in the next FY24, as the government has set a higher Tk262,000 crore borrowing target for financing the massive deficit national budget.
In the proposed national budget, the government has set a target to borrow Tk102,000 crore ($9.50 billion) from external sources.
The World Bank, ADB, Japan, AIIB, China and India are the major lenders to Bangladesh as the government usually borrows some $8 billion to $10 billion worth of funds from these financiers.