Nigeria’s foreign debt stands at $22.08bn, local N3.48trn

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the country’s foreign debt stands at 22.08billion dollars.

The bureau’s “Nigerian Domestic and Foreign Debt’’ Q2 2018 report released in Abuja, said the country’s domestic debt stood at N3.48trillion.

According to the bureau, further disaggregation of Nigeria’s foreign debt shows that 10.88billion dollars of the debt is multilateral and 274.98million 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 2.12billion dollar bilateral from the Exim Bank of China, Japan International Cooperation Agency, India and KfW bank while 8.80billion 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. "