Tunisia’s public debt reached, at the end of December 2017, 69.9% of GDP against 61.9% in 2016, according to the December 2017 Public Debt Monthly Brochure posted by the Finance Ministry on its website.
In terms of value, outstanding public debt rose from 55 921.5 MD (million dinars) for the whole of 2016 to 68,073.7 MD at the end of December 2017.
The external debt stood in December 2017 at 46,785.1 MD (48.04% of GDP). It includes 50% of multilateral debts, 14% of bilateral debts and 36% of debts contracted with the international financial market.
Domestic debt stood at 21,288.6 MD (21.86% of GDP) and is essentially made up of assimilable treasury bonds (59%) and deposits at the General Treasury of Tunisia (31%).
As a result, the debt service also increased from 5,198.3 MD for the whole of 2016 to 7,003.9 MD at the end of December 2017. The 2017 complementary finance law projected a debt service of 7,090 MD.
Following the same trend, external borrowing recorded at the end of December 2017 stood at 8,644.5 MD, more than the double in 2016 (4,013.5 MD). Domestic borrowing, however, dropped from 3,888.6 MD for 2016 to 2,680.6 MD at the end of December 2017.
TunisianMonitorOnLine (Source:TAP)
