According to the data released by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Lebanese gross public debt increased by an annual 7.8% to settle at $91.99B in January 2020.
In details, local currency debt (denominated in LBP) climbed by a yearly 12.33% to $58B. Correspondingly, domestic debt composed 63.1% of gross public debt, up from last year’s 60.57% of total in Jan.2019.
Meanwhile, total debt denominated in foreign currency recorded an uptick of 0.91% year-in-year (YOY) to amount to $33.95B over the same period. In fact, the foreign debt constituted 36.9% of total gross debt, compared to 39.4% in Jan.2020.In details, the total outstanding Eurobonds issued by the government amounted $31.31B in Jan 2020.
In turn, Lebanon’s total net debt, excluding public sector deposits at commercial banks and the central bank, added 7.62%YOY to $81.74B over the same period.
Worth mentioning that Lebanon held an investor presentation on Friday to update the country’s Eurobond holders on the government’s economic plans and principles for the debt restructuring. In fact, On Saturday 7 March 2020, Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced that Lebanon for the first time will not pay a $1.2B Eurobond due on March 9 and will seek to restructure its massive debt which reached $90B in 2019.
Breakdown of Gross Public Debt January in $B
Source: MOF