As of December 31, 2024, the state and state-guaranteed debt amounted to UAH 6,980.9 billion and $166.1 billion in foreign currency equivalent. In 2024, the national debt increased by 26.5% in hryvnia (+ UAH 1461 billion) and by 14.3% in foreign currency (+ $20.7 billion). Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Tax Committee, wrote this in his telegram channel.
In foreign currency equivalent:
Public direct debt increased by $22.6 billion, while guaranteed debt decreased by $1.9 billion.
According to Hetmantsev, as of 2022-2023, the lion’s share (about 7/8) of the growth in total public debt in 2024 was due to an increase in external debt. The rest (1/8) was due to domestic government bonds.
In terms of external debt, the largest net impact on debt growth in 2024 was the receipt of concessional loans from the EU under the Ukraine Facility in the amount of $11.1 billion, the World Bank Group in the amount of $8.9 billion, the IMF in the amount of $2.4 billion, and the Canadian government in the amount of $1.4 billion.
The decrease in public debt was mainly due to the reduction in debt on Eurobonds due to the restructuring of the latter (-$4.5 billion total).
Public debt service expenditures in 2024 amounted to 8.8% of the state budget’s general fund expenditures (compared to 8.2% in 2023, 6.5% in 2022, and 12.4% in 2021).
By the end of 2024, the ratio of public debt to GDP will be about 90.4% of GDP (compared to 84.4% in 2023, 77.7% in 2022, and 49% in 2021).
At the same time, the latest forecasts for this year were much worse (in particular, the IMF forecasted 95.6% of GDP under the 5th EFF revision and 92.2% of GDP under the 6th revision).
“Thus, in 2024, the debt burden on the budget and the economy continued to grow. At the same time, because the lion’s share of the new debt is provided on exceptional preferential terms, as well as the Eurobond transaction conducted in August 2024, and even earlier – the restructuring of debt to official creditors from the G7 and the Paris Club (valid until the end of March 2027), the debt burden remains moderate for a full-scale war and meets the parameters set by the EFF program,” Hetmantsev summed up.
