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40.87% of public debt held in shillings
The largest chuck of Uganda's public debt is held in shillings, according to Finance Ministry. Photo / File
What you need to know:
- Public debt in shillings stands at 40.87 percent, followed by dollars at 30.3 percent and Euros at 17.16 percent
Ministry of Finance has said public debt by currency composition as of December 2022 was largely dominated by shillings, followed by dollars and Euros.
In its Medium Term Debt Management Strategy 2023/27, the Ministry of Finance said debt in shillings stood at 40.87 percent of the entire debt stock followed by dollars at 30.3 percent.
Other currency compositions included Euro at 17.16 percent, Japanese Yen (0.76 percent), while the Chinese Yuan stood at 0.72 percent. Other currencies stood at 4.86 percent.
The dominance of the shilling, the Ministry of Finance noted, was due to the fact that the stock of domestic debt was issued in the local currency.
The Ministry also indicated that public debt composition by interest type, was largely composed of fixed rates at 87.42 percent due to a reduction in the share of variable interest rate loans from 21.7 percent to 21.29 percent.
China holds the largest stock of variable-rated debt at $963.42m, followed by commercial banks such as Afrexim ($378. 95m) and Trade Development Bank ($474.32m).
Details indicate total interest payments as a share of gross domestic product increased to 3.6 percent from 3.1 percent due to an increase in both domestic and external interest rates in the first half of 2022/23 financial year.
As of December 2022, domestic debt due to mature in one year decreased to 23 percent from 35.7 percent, while external debt due to mature in the same period as percentage of the total debt rose to 5 percent from 4.2 percent in line with an increase in the share of non-concessional debt to 25 percent.
By end December 2022, 62 percent of planned Treasury Bills borrowing for the 2022/23 financial year had been issued and 54 percent of planned 20-year Treasury Bond had been issued.
Government has so far borrowed Shs3.2 trillion through Treasury Bills and Shs730.4b from the 20-year Treasury Bond, which brings the total to Shs5.6 trillion so far.
During the period, the Ministry of Finance noted, average interest for both its domestic and external debt rose from 13.6 percent to 14.3 percent and 1.6 percent to 2.4 percent, respectively.
