According to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Lebanon’s gross public debt reached $81.875B in March 2018 recording an annual uptick of 6.1% and a 0.43% uptick from February 2018’s level.
In details, local currency debt (denominated in LBP) constituting 62.63% of total gross debt rose by 8.42% year-on-year (y-o-y) to $51.3B. Meanwhile, foreign currency (FC) debt, grasping the remaining 37.37% grew by 2.42% y-o-y to stand at $30,6B.This is mainly due to the increase of T-bills issued during this period due to the available liquidity in Lebanese pound. The division between foreign and domestic currency debt could change in May 2018 because of the $5.5B swap of T-Bills/Eurobonds between the Ministry of Finance and the BDL, whereby the outstanding Eurobonds will increase by more than 15% and the stock of T-bills will decline. Moreover, foreign currency debt was mainly covered in the form of Eurobonds, constituting 92.4% of foreign currency debt, while multilateral and bilateral loans took respective shares of 4.5% and 2.9%.
In its turn, net public debt, which excludes public sector deposits at commercial banks and BDL, reached $71.07B in March 2018, climbing by a yearly 7.28%.
Gross Public Debt in March (in $B)
Sources: MoF