National public debt skyrocketed in December: it increased by 33,358 million dollars during 2022 and reached the record of 396,539 million dollars.
Due to new disbursements from the IMF, loans from the rest of the international organizations and placements of government bonds, the national public debt rose by the equivalent of 11,846 million dollars.
With this figure, during 2022, “the stock of gross debt in the normal payment situation increased by the equivalent of US$ 33,358 million, due to the increase in foreign currency debt by US$ 9,985 million and the increase in the local currency debt equivalent to US$23,373 million,” according to the Finance Ministry report.
Consequently, “the stock of gross debt amounted to a total amount of US$ 396,539 million, of which $394.047 million is in a normal payment situation.”
“33% of the debt in the normal payment situation is payable in local currency while the remaining 67% in foreign currency”, reads the official report.
Of this total, “74% of the gross debt in the normal payment situation corresponds to State Treasury Securities and Effects, 21% to bonds with External Official Creditors, 4% corresponds to Transitional Advances and the remaining 1% to other tools.”, he adds.
Meanwhile, during 2022 the gross reserves of the Central Bank went from US$39,662 million at the end of 2021 to US$44,968 million, an increase of US$5,306 million, well below the increase in debt.
For its part, the debt to the IMF has increased from $40,952 million in December 2021 to 45,707 million dollars at the end of last year. And interest payments with the financial institution totaled $1,721 million last year.
Part of the increase in public debt can be explained by the National Treasury’s increased obligations towards the Central Bank due to losses between the purchase and sale value of the soybean dollar. Even for the placement of new debt securities in pesos and for the new debt assumed by the State to pay the annual interest.
It is that “during 2022 the interest payments reached an amount equal to US$7,629 million, of which 53% in foreign currency. Bond interest represents 60% of the total, 69% being in local currency. Payments to multilateral organizations total $2,545 million, of which 68 percent ($1,721 million) are IMF loans,” the Congressional Budget Office said.
In relation to the end of November 2019, the start of the current government’s management, the gross debt has risen from from US$313,299 million to US$396,539 million: a 26.5% increase to US$83,240 million.
Almost all of the increase in borrowing was in inflation-adjusted pesos, which went from the equivalent to from US$ 23,791 million to US$ 67,934 million, an increase of 185.5%.
All these values They do not include the debt of the Central Bank or of the Provinces or Municipalities. Neither is the private sector debt that asks the central bank for dollars to pay its dues, both principal and interest.
The Ministry of Finance explains that “based on the recommendations of statistical manuals and on the basis of international definitions, the dollar is used as the unit of account to provide comparability and standardize statistics. In this way, all figures are expressed in their equivalent in dollars by applying the exchange rate of the last working day of the period to convert into that currency the outstanding debts issued and payable in: pesos, special drawing rights (SDRs), euros, yen, etc.”.
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Source: Clarin
