Public debt at Rs 1.56 trillion, Rs 78 billion collected in six months

KATHMANDU: Size of country’s public debt has exceeded Rs 1.5 trillion , equivalent to 40 percent of Nepal’s gross domestic product (GDP) value which is sized at Rs 3.76 trillion.

As of mid-January, the total outstanding debt of the federal government is Rs 664.21 billion in internal borrowing and while the external debt is at Rs 842.59 billion, as per the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

Out of the total outstanding foreign debt obligations during this period, the share of multilateral debt is 88.1 percent while that of bilateral debt is 11.9 percent.

Of the outstanding domestic debt liabilities of the government, development bonds accounted for 65.3 per cent, treasury bills 33.5 per cent, citizen savings bonds 1.2 per cent and foreign employment savings bonds 0.1 per cent.

MoF’s statistics shows that the government has borrowed Rs 78.4 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal year. The government has targeted to mobilize a total of Rs 299.50 billion in foreign loans and Rs 225 billion in domestic loans in the ongoing fiscal year.