Public debt interest increased in 2021

The Mozambican state spent more money on debt interest rates in 2021 than it did in the previous year. The 2021 report by the Ministry of Economy and Finance indicates that public debt grew last year. On a positive note, the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) rate fell. It is, in fact, further proof that the recent increases in interest rates have also affected the state, which also has debts with national banks. Mozambique spent more money on public debt interest last year than in the previous year, the 2021 Public Debt Report, produced and published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, reveals.

From 2020 to 2021, the amount that the state spent on interest rates grew, because the weighted average increased from 4.7% to 5.6%. Note that this is a direct result of the worsening trend in the benchmark MIMO interest rate in Mozambique. Last year, the average rate of external debt was 2.2%, while that of internal debt was 15.6%. Naturally, in nominal terms, the value of the external debt turns out to be higher, because the stock is three times higher.

The growth in the cost of public debt takes place in a context in which Mozambique has postponed the payment of instalments equivalent to US$175.6 million on loans from some of the country’s largest creditors, such as China, Japan and Portugal, as well as from Belgium, France, South Korea South and Spain. This is in light of Mozambique’s accession to the Debt Service Suspension Initiative of the Paris Club and G20 countries.But there is also good news: the debt sustainability index has improved substantially. In 2020, Mozambique’s public debt represented 92.2% of all the country’s wealth, but in 2021, it represented only 78.6%.

The government’s target is 60% by 2025.However, the reduction in the weight of public debt in relation to GDP does not mean a drop in the stock of credits. In fact, what happened was that, in 2020, the first year of Covid-19, Mozambique had an economic decrease of 1.3 percent and, in 2021, our economy grew by 2.1%.

Mozambique’s public debt, in fact, went from US$12.9 billion in 2020 to US$13.9 billion in 2021. Of these US$13.9 billion, US$10.4 billion relates to external debt, and US$3.5 billion to what is owed domestically.