Georgia's External Debt Amounts $17.5 Billion

The gross external debt of Georgia amounted to $17.5 billion (42.2 billion GEL) as of March 31, 2018 and 111.5% of the last four quarters' Gross Domestic Product (GDP), notes the National Bank of Georgia (NBG).

In the first quarter of 2018, $238.3 million of the debt's increase was due to exchange rate changes and $21 million was due to transactions. Pricing and other changes lead to a decrease of $57.0 and $9.7 million, respectively. Together, it totaled a $192.6 million increase in the gross external debt of Georgia.

The NBG says that public sector external debt amounted to $7.4 billion (17.9 billion GEL) or 47.3% of GDP. Of which, the debt of the general government amounted to $5.4 billion (13.0 billion GEL) or 34.5% of GDP. External liabilities of the National Bank of Georgia amounted to $297.7 million (718.8 million GEL) or 1.9% of GDP. 

The external debt of the banking sector amounted to $3.8 billion (9.2 billion GEL) or 24.3% of GDP. Other sectors' external debt stood at $5.4 billion (13.0 billion GEL) or 34.3% of GDP. $2.6 billion (6.3 billion GEL) or 16.6% of GDP came from intercompany lending. 90.9% of the gross external debt of Georgia was denominated in foreign currency.

The net external debt of Georgia amounted to $10.6 billion (25.5 billion GEL or 67.4% of GDP) as of 31st March 2018. Net public sector external debt was $4.4 billion (10.5 billion GEL or 27.8% of GDP).

By Thea Morrison