Filenews 7 December 2023
Central government debt fell to €22.5 billion at the end of September 2023, showing a decrease of €1.33 billion. or 5.6%, compared to the end of June of the same year.
Compared to the same period last year (September 2022), central government debt shows a decrease of €1.24 billion, corresponding to a percentage decrease of 5.2%.
According to a quarterly bulletin of the Public Debt Management Office (DGM), during the third quarter of the year, the Republic of Cyprus in August 2023 proceeded with the early repayment of a domestic bond of €300 million, which matured in January 2024, while in July 2023, a European medium-term bond (EMTN) of €1 billion matured.
Maturities of treasury bills for the third quarter of 2023 amounted to €75m. and bond repayments for individuals, including early repayments, amounted to €18m. Loan repayments amounted to €17m.
The auctions of 13-week Treasury Bills in the third quarter of 2023 amounted to around €35 million. The weighted average yield of these auctions amounted to 3.9%, showing an increase compared to the corresponding yield of the second quarter of 2023, which was 3.5%.
The coverage ratio of auctions for the same quarter decreased from 3.8 corresponding to the previous quarter to 2.7.
The amounts disbursed by the European Investment Bank for infrastructure projects in July and August amounted to €45 million.
In terms of debt structure, 58.4% is allocated to foreign bonds, followed by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) loan with 28.8%, while 8% is to loans from the European Investment Bank, the Council of Europe Development Bank and the EU's SURE fund.
It should be noted that 96% of debt is foreign debt and only 4% corresponds to domestic debt, while long-term debt constitutes 99% of total central government debt and only 1% in the short term.
It is recalled that central government debt constitutes 99% of general government debt (the total debt of the Republic of Cyprus).
