Jagdeo glorifies IMF’s report to show Guyana ‘is good to borrow more’

May 11, 2025 News

Kaieteur News- Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has turned to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) latest analysis on Guyana to dismiss concerns over the country’s mounting debt, asserting that the economy remains strong enough to sustain the government’s borrowing practices – moving the country’s debt from US$2.6 billion in 2020 to nearly US$6 billion at the end of 2024.

Jagdeo glorifies IMF’s report to show Guyana ‘is good to borrow more’

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo

At his press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo sought to shut down critics who have accused the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government of saddling future generations with an unsustainable debt burden.

The Vice President pointed to the IMF’s recent country report, which upgraded Guyana’s risk of debt distress from moderate to low, and praised the country’s debt management in the face of transformative infrastructure investments.

“I wish to draw your attention to it, says ‘total public debt has fallen considerably since 2020’ and they measure debt-to-GDP ratio…so that sentence there would answer all the critics,” Jagdeo said.

He highlighted, “…it responds to all that we’ve been hearing from all of those people who’ve been saying the debt is unsustainable and that we are saddling future generations with an unsustainable debt.”

IMF said in their debt sustainability analysis (DSA) on Guyana, “Gross public debt remains low, vulnerabilities to large shocks are mitigated by very large buffers, and the assessment of the risk of debt distress has been upgraded to low.”

The Fund projects Guyana’s debt-to-GDP ratio will rise slightly from 24% in 2024 to about 28% by 2026. However, it was noted that this is still within the country’s debt ceilings, which were raised early in 2024 by the government to facilitate more borrowing.

For his part, Vice President Jagdeo boasted that Guyana maintains one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios globally, even after securing billions in new loans. “So, we have pointed out we have some of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world and also debt there we’re using just a fraction of our revenue to service that debt, unlike the past, Jagdeo said.

Graph showing the massive growth in Guyana’s debt (in US-billions) from 2019 to 2024

This publication reported that in 2019, the country’s debt was US$1.8 billion; according to Annual Reports from the Bank of Guyana (BoG), the nation’s debt grew by 46.7% in 2020 to US$2.6 billion. In 2021, the debt surged to US$3.1 billion, and in 2022, this trend continued with the total stock of debt climbing to US$3.7 billion. In 2023, debt increased further by 23.4% to US$4.5 billion while this grew to a massive US$6 billion at the end of 2024.

In January, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance and Public Service, Dr. Ashni Singh, during his 2025 Budget presentation, disclosed that as of December 31, 2024, Guyana’s Total Public and Publicly Guaranteed (PPG) debt has climbed to US$5.993 billion. This marks a significant increase from the US$4.5 billion recorded at the end of December 2023.

He elaborated that external PPG debt reached US$2.2 billion by the end of 2024, while domestic PPG debt rose to US$3.7 billion. Comparing mid-year figures, external PPG debt stood at US$1.9 billion as of June 2024, and domestic PPG debt was recorded at US$3.1 billion during the same period. This underscores a notable increase in both categories during the latter half of the year.

The minister had explained that the government has prioritized responsible management of Guyana’s public debt. In early 2024, the government got the green light to increase the ceilings on both domestic and external debt. The domestic public debt ceiling has been increased to $1.5 trillion, up from $750 billion from its last revision. Meanwhile, a new external borrowing ceiling of $1.5 trillion has been approved, after its last increase to $900 billion. This move was part of a broader financial strategy to increase the nation’s capacity, in order to finance its $1.146 trillion 2024 budget, including several large-scale infrastructure projects.

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