Government Debt Reaches Rp7,040.32 Trillion by April 2022

The Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) recorded that the government's debt position at the end of April 2022 reached Rp7,040.32 trillion, with a ratio to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 39.09%.

Nominally, government debt in April 2022 decreased by 0.17% compared to the previous month, which was Rp7,052.5 trillion. Meanwhile, year-on-year, government debt increased by 7.8% from April 2021, which amounted to Rp6,527 trillion.

Cited from the May edition of the "Our State Budget" book, this government debt consists of State Debt Securities (SBN) issuance, which contributed Rp6,228.9 trillion or 88.47%. This issuance is divided into domestic SBN of Rp4,993.48 trillion and foreign currency (forex) SBN of Rp1,235.41 trillion.

This government debt also includes government loans amounting to Rp811.42 trillion. These loans consist of domestic loans of Rp14.10 trillion and foreign loans of Rp797.32 trillion.

For foreign loans, the details are: Bilateral loans of Rp270.48 trillion, Multilateral loans of Rp484.59 trillion, and Commercial Bank loans of Rp42.25 trillion.

Although still shrouded in uncertainty, economic recovery in 2022 is expected to continue. The decreasing 2022 State Budget deficit compared to the target deficit in 2020 and 2022 shows the government's efforts to gradually return to a deficit of below 3% of GDP in 2023.

"Along with this, the Government will continue to maintain the debt ratio, primarily by prioritizing the use of non-debt financing, such as optimizing the utilization of Budget Surplus (SAL) as a fiscal buffer, and implementing Joint Decree (SKB) I and SKB III with Bank Indonesia (BI)," wrote Kemenkeu.

(See also: Indonesia's Foreign Debt Falls to US$411.5 Billion in Q1 2022)