DMO: Foreign debt servicing hit $197.29m in Q3

A total of $197.29m was spent on servicing Nigeria’s foreign debts in the third quarter of 2017 (Q3 2017), according to the Debt Management Office (DMO).

Data obtained from the DMO on Wednesday showed that commercial loans or Eurobonds, accounted for the highest foreign debt payment, gulping 53 percent of the country’s external loan commitment.

Following closely was multilateral sources which accounted for 30 percent of debt servicing commitment in Q3 2017.

Some of the multilateral sources include the African Development Bank Group, the Islamic Development Bank; the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association, both of the World Bank.

Bilateral loans, however, accounted for 17 percent of external loan servicing commitment in the same period under review.

Export Import Bank of China is a key source of the bilateral loans.

French Development Agency, Japan International Cooperation Agency and Germany’s KFW Development Bank, are also sources of bilateral loans.

According to the DMO, Nigeria is servicing payment for bilateral loans including “loans for the Nigeria Communication Satellite, Nigeria National Public Security Communications System, Nigeria Railway modernisation project, Abuja light rail project, Nigeria ICT infrastructure backbone project, four airport terminals expansion projects and the Zungeru hydroelectric project.”