Bangladesh's external debt to GDP ratio reaches 21.8%

The total outstanding stock of the external debt reached $90.79 billion at the end of 2021, recording 24.50 per cent growth over the same period of 2020.

Of the total external debt, long-term debt was 80.10 per cent, or $72.70 billion, while short-term debt was 19.90 per cent, or $18.09 billion.

The half-yearly report, titled ‘Foreign Direct Investment and External Debt: July-December 2021’, shows around 75 per cent of the total external debt is in the public sector, while the rest is in the private sector.

“For Bangladesh, external debt is one of the important financial sources for investment,” said the report. “The external debt of Bangladesh is the total debt which the country owes to foreign creditors. The debtors can be the central government, state owned enterprises, private sector enterprises of Bangladesh,” it said.

It also revealed that the ratio of foreign exchange reserves to total external debt fell to 50.8 per cent in the last year from 59.2 per cent in 2020, according to Bangladeshi media reports.

Moreover, per head foreign debt in Bangladesh increased to $536.24 in the last year which was $435.31 in 2020.

According to the report, the country’s foreign debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, foreign governments, or international financial institutions such as International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)