Nigeria’s Foreign Commercial Loans Surge 262.33% in Two Years

• Nigeria’s Foreign Commercial Loans Surge 262.33% in Two Years

Nigeria’s debt has risen substantially in the last two years, according to the data from the Debt Management Office (DMO).

The data released on Monday showed Nigeria’s foreign commercial loans rose from $3 billion recorded in March 2017 to $10.87 billion as of March 2019. Indicating the nation’s foreign commercial loans rose by $7.87 billion or 262.33 percent in the last two years.

Also, Nigeria’s indebtedness to multilateral agencies grew $8.86bn to $11.25bn during the same period. Again, this means multilateral loans grew by $2.39 billion or 26.98 percent.

In 2017, multilateral loans were 64.13 percent of national external loans, however, because of the surge in external loans in recent years, that percentage has dropped to 43.92 percent.

The country’s external debt rose from $13.81 billion in 2017 to $25.61 billion in 2019, representing an increase of $11.8 billion or 85.45 percent within the last two years.

Nigeria’s debt to GDP rose to 19 percent last year but Nigeria’s debt servicing cost to budget rose above 25 percent in the early part of 2019.