22 March 2014 Weekly Eleven
NAYPYITAW-Myanmar has a total of Ks10.824 trillion (US$11.23 billion) in public domestic debt as of March last year from selling treasury bonds and treasury bills to fulfill the country's needs, according to the Minister of Finance and Revenue Win Shein.
Minister of Finance and Revenue Win Shein yesterday told the Union Parliament that the remaining public domestic debt from successive years to 2011 amounts to Ks 8.281 trillion (US$8.59 billion). After the new government took office, it has sold treasury bonds and treasury bills worth Ks 1.657 trillion (US$1.72 billion) in the FY 2011-2012 and Ks 886 billion (US$919 million) in the FY 2012-2013 to fulfill the needs. So, the country has a total of Ks. 10.824 trillion public domestic debt up to the end of March 31, 2013.
The treasury bonds have been categorised into three categories: two-year, three-year, and five-year and the interest rates are 8.75 percent, 9 percent, and 9.5 percent per year respectively. Individuals and organisations buy and invest in the treasury bonds while treasury bills can only be bought and invested by the Central Bank of Myanmar. The interest rates for the treasury bills are 4 percent per year and the duration is three-month.
"Regarding the public domestic debt, we plan to control the deficit as much as we can and keep the public domestic debt at a reasonable amount," said Minister Win Shein.
Besides having Ks 10.824 trillion in public domestic debt, Myanmar also owns Ks 9.402 trillion (US$9.59 billion) in foreign debt to three international funding organisations including the IMF and the Asian Development Bank and sixteen countries, including India, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, and China.
In total, Myanmar owes Ks 20.226 trillion (US$20.98 billion) in both domestic and foreign debts for 2013. The country's public domestic debts to GDP ratio is 21.1 percent while the foreign debts to GDP ratio is 15.9 percent. Both the domestic and foreign debts to GDP ratio is estimated at 37 percent, according to Win Shein.
