Nigeria’s finance minister Zainab Ahmed said on Thursday the country’s borrowing was still practical and sustainable and authorities were comfortable meeting debt obligations.
The Debt Management Office put Nigeria’s total local and foreign debt at $103 billion at the end of June, but the figure excludes 20 trillion naira ($49.6 billion) in central bank advances to the government.
Nigeria’s revenue to GDP ratio, at 7%, is one of the world’s lowest, according to the World Bank, and the country is spending a large part of the money on debt repayments, raising concern about the possibility of a default.
Ahmed, however, said national debt was 33% of GDP, the lowest on the African continent and there was no need for debt restructuring.
“We have a projection of meeting our debt through short and medium term strategies. We are comfortable in our ability to meet our debt,” Zainab told reporters in the capital Abuja.
