REUTERS
Ukraine's state and government-guaranteed debt by the end of 2016 rose to US$71 billion, or about 82% of GDP; a third of the debt growth was due to additional capitalization of the country's No. 1 bank, PrivatBank, as part of its nationalization, according to the Case Ukraine analytical group's report.
The group's experts cited the Finance Ministry, which reported a 1.2% reduction in state debt in November, to $67.54 billion, but in December, the government decided on the nationalization of Dnipro-based PrivatBank along with its additional capitalization, which required the issuance of government domestic loan bonds worth UAH 107 billion.
Read alsoEconomy Ministry forecasts 3% GDP growth in 2017"In fact, the debt had increased, according to our estimates, to about 82% of GDP (nearly $71 billion) as of the end of December. In total, the debt expanded by about UAH 300 billion during the year. The most significant shares of this growth are an IMF $1 billion disbursement and $1 billion in eurobonds. PrivatBank's additional capitalization added over a third to the growth of the debt in the past year," the report said.
According to Case Ukraine, this trend means that each working Ukrainian citizen's liabilities in 2016 grew by UAH 20,500, to UAH 116,700, including UAH 6,600 due to PrivatBank.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the total amount of Ukraine's state and government-guaranteed debt at the end of November 2016 stood at $67.54 billion, which was 1.2% down on the beginning of that month.
The total sum of the debt in the hryvnia equivalent as of the end of November was UAH 1.729 trillion, which was 0.8% down on the beginning of that month.
In January-November, Ukraine saw a 3.1% decline in the debt estimated in U.S. dollars, and a 9.96% decrease in the debt estimated in hryvnias.
Ukraine's national budget for 2016 capped the state and government-guaranteed debt at UAH 1.946 trillion as of the end of the year.