Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) said Wednesday, as of December 2018, the country’s outstanding domestic debt stood at N12.44 billion.
This was included in the bank’s 2018 Annual Activity Report released by the Financial Markets Department, CBN, and posted in Lagos on Wednesday on its website.
The CBN said the figure was down N146.35 million or 1.16% compared to N12.59 billion in 2017.
The decline was due to the preference of the Federal Government for foreign borrowing to finance its fiscal deficit at at attractive rates, according to the CBN.
He said, “The debt stock consisted of N9.13 billion FGN bonds or 73.41 per cent, N10.75 billion FGN Saving Bonds or 0.09 per cent, N200.00 billion FGN Sukuk or 1.61 per cent.
“FGN Green Bonds of N10.69 billion or 0.09 %, FGN Special Bonds of N200.54 billion or 1.61 %, and NTBs of N2.735.97 billion or 21.99 %.”
The regulator also said the remaining 1.21 percent of the country’s outstanding treasury bonds worth N150.99 billion.
The bank added that the debt servicing cost increased to N1.8 billion by 23.65 percent compared to N1.46 billion at the end of 2017.
It said, “The increase in debt servicing costs in 2018 was due to coupon payments of new instruments like FGN Sukuk, Green Bonds and FGN Savings.”
