Tajikistan’s public debt to GDP ratio decreased from 50 percent at the beginning of 2020 to 33.3 percent by January 1, 2023, according to the World Bank report entitled “Weak Growth, High Inflation, and Cost-of-Living Crisis: Europe and Central Asia Economic Update”.
The World Bank economists expect that this figure will be 33.9 percent at the end of the current year and will return to the current level only by the end of 2025.
The report notes that Tajikistan is at high risk of debt distress (largely due to Eurobond and IMF Rapid Credit Facility principal repayments in 2025-2027) but on a sustainable debt path in the medium term.
Meanwhile, the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) says Tajikistan’s public debt to GDP ratio has decreased to 28.5 percent by January 1 2023.
Most likely, under the indicator of 28.5 percent, analysts meant not the ratio of public debt but external debt to gross domestic product (GDP).
“Macroeconomic Review: April 2023”, released by the EDB on April 10, notes that Russia and Kazakhstan have lowest public debt-to-GDP ratios — 15.1% and 24.4%, respectively.
The Review authors underline that as of January 1, 2023, public debt-to-GDP ratios of Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan were 51.7%, 39.9% and5%, respectively.
According to data from the Ministry of Finance of Tajikistan, Tajikistan external debt has amounted to 3,288,300,000 US dollars, which is equal to 28.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
According to official data, over the past year, Tajikistan’ external debt has decreased by 15.4 million US dollars and the GDP real growth has been 8.0 percent. In 2022, the nominal volume of the country’s GDP reportedly increased by 16 billion somonis (equivalent to 1.5 billion US dollars).
According to the latest available data, Tajikistan’s internal debt has amounted to 500 million US dollars as of July 1, 2022,which is equal to 4.7 percent of GDP.
