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Guyana’s debt burden surges
— US$110M paid in six months, nearly half in interest
(Kaieteur News) – Guyana paid US$110 million in the first half of 2025 to service its debt and nearly half of that sum went straight to interest, according to the Bank of Guyana’s Half-Year Report.
The Central Bank disclosed that interest payments alone amounted to US$44.8 million between January and June, reflecting the rising cost of the country’s rapid borrowing in recent years.
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh
Central Bank reported, “Total debt service payments amounted to US$110 million in the first half of 2025, representing a 29.1% increase relative to the corresponding period in 2024. Domestic debt service payments increased by G$1,889.6 million to G$7,762.3 million, likewise external debt service payments rose by 27.6% to US$72.8 million on account of higher principal repayments to bilateral creditors.”
Meanwhile, about US$17.3M and US$27.5M was paid for domestic and external interest, respectively during the period January to June 2025 amounting to a total of US$44.8M. The BoG report however stated that the debt service to export ratio remained low. The domestic debt service to export ratio in the first half of 2025 was 0.76% while the external debt service to revenue ratio was 3.05%, both below the pre-defined thresholds.
Debt climbs
During the first six months of the year, government increased its borrowing by 13.5% to US$6,804.8 million. Bank of Guyana noted that there was an expansion in both domestic and external debt to fund budgeted spending. “The outstanding stock of government domestic debt, which consists of treasury bills, debentures, bonds and the CARICOM loan, expanded by 17.6 percent to G$920,709.2 million,” according to the report. The document added that external debt also grew by 6.7% to US$2,389 million from the end-December 2024 level. It was explained that the higher external debt was as a result of increased loans from the EximBank of China and China CAMC Engineering Co. LTD (CAMCE) and higher multilateral debt to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
It was reported that Guyana entered the oil era in 2019 with US$1.8 billion in debt. Six years later, that figure skyrocketed to over US$7.7 billion, a four-fold explosion in borrowing under the current administration. At the end of 2024, Guyana’s debt stood at US$6B but another US$1.7B was added to finance the 2025 Budget, as revealed by Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo.
Guyana commenced producing oil in December 2019. Since then, the country has earned just over US$7.8B in oil revenue, according to the third quarter Natural Resource Fund (NRF) report published by Bank of Guyana. Notably, almost US$4.6B has already been withdrawn by government since the inception of the Fund. Previously, Economist Elson Low warned of the consequences associated with dependency on oil revenues to repay debt, as a collapse in oil price could have serious effects on the economy.
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How and why time they stop borrowing
More debt after 6 years. So where is oil revenue going?