National debt at MVR 76 bln

The Finance Ministry has revealed that the total national debt of the Maldives has risen to MVR 76 billion.

In the debt report on the last quarter of 2019, the Ministry noted that the state owed a debt of MVR 48 billion at the end of 2018. However, this number rose to MVR 67 billion by the end of 2019.

By the end of the final quarter of 2019, the total debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at 76%, a 4% increase from the previous year.

The numbers showed a guaranteed debt of MVR 11.6 billion by the end of 2018. This number increased to MVR 13 billion by the end of 2019.

While international financial institutions have been expressing concern on the increasing debt, the current government before the 2018 presidential election had insisted it would not depend on loans to bring about development. However, the government continues to take out a significant amount of loans.