Like a reed, Cameroon bends under the weight of its public debt but does not break. As proof, the monthly economic note on the public debt as of March 23, 2023 indicates a settled cumulative debt service of CFAF 294.3 billion between January and March 2023. This is in particular 82.6% for the external debt and 17.4% for internal debt (excluding balances payable and BTA reimbursement). In perspective, for the second quarter of the year 2023, it is planned to pay a service of 212.7 billion FCFA, including 140.8 billion FCFA in respect of the external debt and 71.9 billion FCFA in domestic debt title. During the month of March alone, the cumulative amount of settled debt amounted to 87.3 billion FCFA, including 74.3 billion FCFA for the repayment of the principal and 13.0 billion FCFA for the payment of interest. and commissions. 75.9% of this service is devoted to servicing the external debt and 24.1% to settling the internal debt.
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Debt service
Recall that during the year 2022, the amount honored by Cameroon for the payment of public debt service is 1,165.8 billion CFA francs. 706.4 billion CFA francs were repaid for external debt and 459.4 billion CFA francs for domestic debt. In detail, it is, with regard to the external debt, 530.9 billion for the amortization of the principal (i.e. 75.2% of the total service) and 175.5 billion CFA francs for the charge of interest (i.e. 24.8 of said service). According to the categories of partners, the distribution shows that the payment of the debt service is more important for the bilateral and commercial debts than for the multilateral debt.
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Indeed, the service of the bilateral debt is estimated at 479.9 billion CFA francs (i.e. 67.9% of the total), including 349 billion CFA francs for the principal, and 130.9 billion CFA francs for interest. That of the commercial debt for its part is 144.5 billion CFA francs (i.e. 20.5% of total external debt service), including 125.3 billion CFA francs intended for the settlement of the principal and 19.2 billion CFA francs to the payment of interest. On the other hand, the service of the multilateral debt stands at only 82.5 billion CFA francs (i.e. 11.6% of the total), including 56.6 billion CFA francs for the principal and 25.4 billion CFA francs for interest.
With regard to the domestic debt, the volume settled during the 2022 financial year is evaluated – as already mentioned above – at 459.4 billion CFA francs, including 405.8 billion CFA francs of amortization of the principal (i.e. 88.3% of the total service) and 53.6 billion CFA francs of interest charges, i.e. 11.7% of the said service. It should be recalled that during the 2022 financial year, the outstanding amount of direct and publicly guaranteed debt (excluding outstanding balances) increased by 948 billion CFA francs, i.e. nearly 3.4% of GDP to stand to 12,183 billion CFA francs (44% of GDP). This development was particularly induced by a more pronounced increase in external debt (+573 billion CFA francs, or 2.1% of GDP) than in domestic debt (+334 billion CFA francs, or 1.2% of GDP) .
READ ALSO: Public debt: 47.5 billion CFA francs to be paid by Cameroon.
Source: Current Challenges no 765 from May 4 to 7, 2023
