The National Bureau of Statistics in its Nigeria Domestic and Foreign Debts report for second quarter of 2018 has put country’s foreign and domestic debts at $22.08 billion and N3.48 trillion respectively.
The latest foreign debt stock represented an increase of about 17 percent over the total debt stock as at the end of December 2017.
A further disaggregation of the foreign debt stock in the NBS report titled ‘Nigerian Domestic and Foreign Debt Q2 2018’ showed that $10.88 billion of the debt was multilateral, $274.98 million bilateral (AFD) and another $2.12 billion bilateral from the Exim Bank of China, JICA, India and KFW while $8.80 billion was commercial.
Multilateral debts are debts owed by countries to the World Bank and IMF, known as the Bretton Woods institutions, while bilateral debt is a simple loan arrangement between a single borrower and a single lender.
According to the Bureau, in terms of the states’ foreign debt stock, Lagos State topped the debtors’ list, accounting for 34.17 percent compared to Edo’s 6.57 percent, Kaduna’s 5.48 percent, Cross River’s 4.56 percent and Bauchi’s 3.18 percent.
Similarly, the NBS reported that out of the total domestic debt of N3.48 trillion, Lagos state also accounted for 14.88 percent, representing the highest in the total domestic debt stock, compared to Anambra State’s 0.08 percent, which remained the least in the domestic debt stock.
