Deadline for Gov. to pay US$34.4B debt service looms

Santo Domingo.- Debt service payments begin to accumulate and in this decade some US$34.4 billion will have to be paid, or 42.2% of all that is pending to creditors, between debt service, interest and commissions, according to the estimates from the Public Credit Directorate of the Finance Ministry.

The rising curve of the Dominican debt puts pressure on public finances. In total, the Dominican Republic owes foreign creditors US$81.5 billion until 2060.

Last September, President Luis Abinader himself pointed out that within two years the impact of the country’ debt accumulated in recent years will be felt and that “even if the economy recovers, the debt crisis will remain.”

On Wednesday the president pointed out that the Government is proposing a progressive reduction in the rate of debt. At the end of September, the amount of consolidated public debt, both external and internal, totaled US$51.9 billion, or 66% GDP.

The Finance Ministry has as a strategy, as it advised Congress in its quarterly debt report, to maintain long terms in external and internal financing, as well as to “implement liability management operations that allow containing exposure to refinancing risk,” says the document.