Georgia Spent GEL 2.4 BLN on External and Domestic Debts
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, April 24
The information was released by the State Audit Office (SAO) which says that out of the spent money, GEL 984 million was spent on external debt and GEL 1,496 million on the internal one.
SAO says that the country has to pay the biggest expenditure to cover the state debt will be in 2021, as Georgia will have to pay for Eurobonds issued in 2011.
In particular, in 2021 Georgia will pay GEL 2.6 billion for the state debt.
Also, the budget monitoring showed that Georgia's domestic debt has increased by 11% and the external debt by 8% in comparison with the previous year. Meanwhile, the balance of state debt amounted to 45% of gross domestic product.
According to the data of the current year, the state debt of Georgia, which includes only debt of the central government and the National Bank of Georgia and the private sector debt guaranteed by the state, amounted to 19.8 billion GEL and its 78% is foreign debt.
In addition, the current year Georgia will have to pay GEL 1.8 billion for the state and foreign debt.
Georgia recorded a government debt equivalent to 44.90 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2017. Government Debt to GDP in Georgia averaged 36.63 percent from 2004 until 2017, reaching an all-time high of 44.90 percent in 2017 and a record low of 21.55 percent in 2007.
Georgia's External Debt accounted for 109.5 % of the country's Nominal GDP in 2018, compared with the ratio of 114.4 % in the previous year.
As of March 28, Georgia owes $17.8 billion in external debt, and this amount is increasing, says the National Bank of Georgia (NBG).
During the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018, the gross external debt of Georgia increased by $533.3 million. Out of that, a $616.5 million increase was due to transactions and $7.8 million due to other changes.
At the same time, the exchange rate and price changes led to a decrease by $65.7 million and $25.3 million, respectively.