THE Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Monday, Jan. 1, reported that the national government (NG) has paid P1.53 trillion of its total debt from January to November 2023.
The NG settled a bigger amount of its debt obligations for the first 11 months of 2023 – 4.8 percent higher than its debt payment of P991.06 billion made in the same period in 2022.
The government has programmed P1.55 trillion for debt payment for the full year of 2023.
Of the total paid debts from January to November last year, amortization payments accounted for 63 percent of the total debt service bill amounting to P967 billion, the BTr data showed.
The government’s principal payments went up by 1.9 percent from the P531.8 billion that the Treasury paid in the same period in 2022.
Thirty-seven percent of the NG’s debt service in the first 11 months of the previous year were interest payments, which the Treasury paid a total of P567.7 billion.
Interest payments in 2023 also rose 3.6 percent from P459.3 billion paid in the same period in 2022.
In particular, interest payments to domestic lenders amounted to P392 billion, and P175 billion was paid to foreign lenders.
The NG paid P113 billion to external creditors during the 11-month period last year, which declined by 7.9 percent from external debt payment of P122.8 billion in January to November 2022.
As of October 2023, the country’s sovereign debt stood at P14.48 trillion. (PNA)/PN
