Ukraine’s aggregate public debt in February shrank by 0.5%: by $0.59 billion to $116.01 billion in dollar terms and by UAH 21.62 billion to UAH 4.24 trillion, according to the Ministry of Finance.
According to them, the direct national debt last month decreased by 0.2% – to $106.18 billion, or 3.88 trillion UAH and amounted to 91.5% of the total public debt and publicly guaranteed debt.
It is reported that the external direct debt decreased by $0.56 billion – to $67.01 billion, while the domestic direct debt increased by UAH 11.99 billion to UAH 1.43 trillion (the equivalent of $39.17 billion).
Ukraine’s total external public debt in February 2023 decreased by 1.2%, or $0.9 billion – to $74.88 billion, while the total internal debt increased by 0.8%, or 11.44 billion UAH – to 1.50 trillion UAH.
As a result, the share of total external public debt in February decreased from 65.0% to 64.6%.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the share of obligations in euros at the end of February decreased to 24.07%, in Canadian dollars – to 1.24%, in SDR – to 12.31%, in Yen – 0.84%, while in U.S. dollars it increased to 29.07%, in UAH – 32.45%, and in British pounds remained at 0.02%.
The Ministry also clarified that 64.42% of the state debt has a fixed interest rate, while 12.31% is tied to the IMF rate, 6.51% – to SOFR, 2.07% – to Libor, 3.32% – to EURIBOR.
Another 3.42% of the government debt is tied to the consumer price index, while 7.6% is tied to the NBU discount rate. We are talking about government bonds from the portfolio of the National Bank, the most recent were securities linked to the discount rate, which the NBU bought within the framework of the emission financing of the budget.
Finally, 0.35% of the government debt has a rate linked to the Ukrainian index of rates on deposits of individuals, used in the programs of portfolio guarantees.
The authorized representative of the Servant of the People faction, Lyubov Shpak, addressed President Volodymyr Zelensky and the government from the rostrum of the parliament with a proposal to immediately hold talks with international partners on writing off Ukraine’s public debt.
“The economic losses of our country daily amount to $1 billion a day… Therefore, we appeal to the President and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine with a position to urgently transfer negotiations with all foreign partners on loan obligations to review and write off our debts,” she said during sittings of Parliament on Sunday, presenting the position of the faction.
Shpak in her speech stressed that the current situation is a typical force majeure for our country.
Earlier, the head of the Ministry of Finance, Sergei Marchenko, repeatedly called the issues of restructuring and writing off debts inappropriate. According to him, Ukraine plans to continue servicing its debt obligations, and from time to time sounding proposals for restructuring the state debt may harm plans. The Minister of Finance stressed that this issue is quite sensitive: “You can take advantage of the moment, but in the future it will hurt us a lot.
