Nigeria’s foreign debt hits $22.08bn

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the country’s foreign debt stands at 22.08 billion dollars and  the domestic debt N3.48 trillion. The bureau disclosed this in its “Nigerian Domestic and Foreign Debt’’ Q2 2018 report released in Abuja, on Friday. According to the bureau, further disaggregation of Nigeria’s foreign debt shows that 10.88 billion dollars of the debt is multilateral and 274.98 million dollars is bilateral.

Multilateral debts are debts owed by developing 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. It said: “There is another 2.12 billion dollar bilateral from the Exim Bank of China, Japan International Cooperation Agency, India and KfW bank while 8.80 billion dollar is commercial. The bureau said Lagos State had the highest foreign debt profile among the 36 states and the FCT accounting for 34.17 per cent.

It said Edo had 6.57 per cent; Kaduna 5.48 per cent; Cross River 4.56 per cent and Bauchi followed closely with 3.18 per cent. “Similarly, total domestic debt was N3.48 trillion with Lagos state accounting for 14.88 per cent of the total domestic debt stock. While Anambra State has the least debt in this category with a contribution of 0.08 per cent.