The federal government’s total debt (domestic and external) stocks rose by 15.7% during the eleven months of the last fiscal year.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data released on Thursday, the central government’s domestic and external debt stocks surged to Rs44.64 trillion at the end of May 2022 compared to Rs38.7 trillion in June 2021, an increase of Rs5.94 trillion.

Economists said that the country’s debt burden is increasing because of massive and continued borrowing from domestic and external resources for financing the fiscal and external deficits.

During the period under review, the major increase was recorded in the external debt, which rose by 25% or Rs3.15 trillion. The federal government’s external debt stood at Rs15.593 trillion in May 2022 up from Rs 12.439 trillion in June 2021. External debt included Rs15.321 trillion of long-term debt and Rs272.2 billion short term loans.

During the period, US dollar's average exchange rate stood at Rs199.03.

Similarly, an upward trend was also seen in the federal government’s domestic debt, which went up by 10.5% during the July-May of this fiscal year. The central government’s domestic debt stocks surged to Rs29.044 trillion in May 2022 as against Rs26.265 trillion in June 2021, showing an increase of Rs2.779 trillion.

The total domestic debt stocks are composed of permanent debt amounting to Rs19.963 trillion, unfunded debt Rs3.394 trillion and floating debt Rs5.64 trillion.

In addition, the newly launched Naya Pakistan Certificates for overseas Pakistanis also attracted healthy inflows, which rose to Rs31.3 billion in May as against Rs28.2 billion in June last year.

Analysts said that revaluation losses on external debt emerging from the Pak rupee depreciation against the US dollar increased the public debt stock.