Ukraine's public debt now exceeds $124 billion, having grown by $4.4 billion in April, Danil Getmantsev, the head of the Ukrainian Parliament's finance committee, said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th May, 2023) Ukraine's public debt now exceeds $124 billion, having grown by $4.4 billion in April, Danil Getmantsev, the head of the Ukrainian Parliament's finance committee, said on Monday.
"As of April 30, public and publicly guaranteed debt amounted to 4,544.9 billion hryvnias or $124.3 billion. Over the last reporting month, public debt increased by 3.7%, plus $4.4 billion. At the end of 2022, the ratio of public debt to GDP amounted to 78.4%," Getmantsev wrote on his Telegram channel.
The first tranche under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amounting to $2.7 billion and the third tranche of macro-financial assistance from the EU this year worth 1.5 billion euros ($1.61 billion) are among the main contributors to the debt increase, the lawmaker noted.
In April, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said that Ukraine's sovereign debt might reach a record-breaking $173 billion by the end of 2023, adding that the main part of the Western assistance is provided in the form of credit, which "will need to be paid sooner or later."
In January, the governor of Ukraine's National Bank, Andriy Pyshnyi, said the total assistance to Kiev from international partners and the International Monetary Fund in 2023 might exceed $38 billion and cover the deficit of Ukraine's state budget.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said that the country's budget had been facing a deficit of around $5 billion every month since the start of the military conflict, with two thirds of the money being received through foreign loans and grants, and three quarters spent on military needs.
