Nigeria’s Foreign Debt Now $10.3 Billion As Revenue Rises To N485.95 billion

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has announced that the nation’s foreign debt profile as at the second quarter 2015 stood at about USD10.3 billion, over 10 per cent increase, against USD9.5bn recorded in the first quarter of the year.

Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari

According to the release published by Vanguard newspaper, the country’s domestic debt stood at N8.39 trillion against N8.31 trillion in the first quarter as the Federal Government revenue rose to N485.95 billion, from May figure of N324.7 billion.

Further break down of the external debt revealed that Nigeria owe multilateral organisations USD7.23 billion as against USD6.54 billion in the first quarter. Debt stock owed to countries and or their financial institutions ( Bilateral) stood at USD1.58 billion, from USD1.42 billion in the first quarter.

The country owe World Bank Group a whooping USD6.19 billion, rising from USD5.73 billion, while the African Development Bank Group was owed USD1.04 billion, up from USD810 million.

Nigeria owe  Exim Bank of China N1.39 billion, while it owe France, Japan and Germany a total of  USD194 million in Bilateral debt.

“The breakdown of the domestic debt stock shows that the bulk is in Federal Government Bond amounting to N5.3 trillion, accounting 63.1 per cent while Nigerian Treasury Bill (NTB) was N2.8 trillion or 33.6 per cent and the balance of N271 billion was in Treasury Bond.’

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s  gross government revenues rose for the second consecutive month in June to 485.95 billion Naira, up 33 percent against May figures the Federal Ministry of Finance has announced.

International oil prices rose at the end of April and benchmark Brent futures were sustained at above US$60 a barrel before falling again below that mark a barrel in July. Nigeria depends on oil sales for about 70 percent of its government revenues.

Meanwhile, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has advised President Buhari to consider selling off nearly half of Nigeria’s Joint Venture equity with multinational oil companies, to enable his  government to raise a huge balance for immediate developmental projects.