Bulgaria’s Govt Debt Rises to EUR 11.3 B at End-2014

Bulgaria’s government debt has increased to EUR 11.3 B in nominal terms at the end of December 2014 from EUR 7.2 B a year earlier, Finance Ministry data showed on Wednesday.

Government debt has also increased compared with November 2014, when it totalled EUR 9.6 B.

The month-on-month net increase of EUR 1.7 was due mainly to fresh foreign borrowing and the issuing of domestic government bonds, the Finance Ministry explained in its Covernment Debt Management bulletin for December.

In December last year Parliament granted the government’s request to take out a six-month bridge loan of EUR 1.5 B, to be used mainly to cover a deficit at the state-run Deposit Insurance Fund, which is in charge of repaying deposits at collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank, or KTB.

As of end-December 2014 domestic debt amounted to EUR 4.2 B and foreign debt totalled EUR 7.1 B. This compared with domestic debt of EUR 3.2 B and foreign debt of EUR 4.0 B at the end of 2013.

According to preliminary estimates, Bulgaria’s government debt-to-GDP ratio was 27.1% at the end of December last year,  an increase compared with 23.1% a month earlier and 17.9% at end-December 2013.

Domestic debt-to-GDP ratio was 10.1% and foreign debt-to-GDP ratio was 17.0%.

Seventy percent of Bulgaria’s government debt was denominated in euro at the end of last year, 20% was denominated in levs and 8.4% in US dollars.

A year earlier the share of euro-denominated debt was 55.4%. Lev-denominated debt was 31.7% of the total and dollar-denominated debt was 11.7%.

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