In November, the national government debt made a small jump again and reached a record by the equivalent of 384,668 million US dollars.
The Finance Secretary reported “that compared to the previous month the debt is in a situation of normal payment increased by the equivalent of USD 517 million, which represents a monthly growth of 0.14%. The variation is explained by the an increase in foreign currency debt of USD 1,709 million and a decrease in local currency debt of USD 1,192 million”.
Part of the increase in foreign currency debt has come about because debt to the IMF increased from US$ 40,721 million to US$ 41,723 million, Due to the higher value of the DEG (Special Drawing Rights), the currency in which the IMF carries out its transactions, there has also been a smaller increase in debt with the rest of the international organisations.
Meanwhile, the decrease in debt in pesos is explained by value adjustments, exchange rates and official weight devaluation.
33% of the debt in normal payment situation is payable in local currency while the remaining 67% in foreign currency.
with these figures “over the past 12 months, the stock of gross debt in the normal payment situation has increased by the equivalent of $30,320 milliondue to an increase in foreign currency debt of USD 3,683 million and an increase in local currency debt of USD 26,637 million”, reads the Financial Report.
On the other hand, “75% of the gross debt in the normal payment situation corresponds to State Treasury Securities and Effects, 20% to commitments with External Official Creditors, 4% corresponds to Transitional Advances and the remaining 1% to other tools”.
These values do not include the debt of the Central Bank or of the Provinces or Municipalities.
With these figures, in the first 11 months of this year the debt of the Central Government increased by the equivalent of US$ 21,435 million.
In relation to the end of November 2019, the beginning of the administration of the current Government, the gross debt has increased from US$ 313,299 million to US$ 384,668 million: an increase of 22.8% equal to US$ 71,369 million.
Almost all of the increase in debt was there inflation adjustable weights which increased from the equivalent of US$ 23,791 million to US$ 68,275 million, an increase of 187%.
While the consequences of borrowing in foreign currency and domestic currency are different, Finance explains that “because of the recommendations of statistical manuals and based on international definitions, the dollar is used as the unit of account to provide comparability and standardize statistics. In this way all the data are expressed in their equivalent value in dollars, applying the exchange rate of the last working day of the period to convert the residual debts issued and payable in this currency in: pesos, special drawing rights (SDR), euro, yen , etc.”
Source: Clarin
