Iran's external debt stocks amounted to $5.451 billion in 2020, posting a year-on-year growth for the first time since 2010, according to World Bank Global Debt Report 2022.
Total external debt stocks reached $4.8 billion in 2019, after registering successive annual drops since 2010, when the amount was $19.7 billion.
External debt stocks comprise public and publicly guaranteed long-term external debt, private nonguaranteed long-term external debt, use of IMF credit, and short-term external debt, including interest arrears on long-term debt.
The figures released by the WB in October 2021 show that long term debt accounted for $1.3 billion of the total external debts, higher than $1.28b in 2019. Private sector’s not guaranteed debts account for $894 million of the long term debts higher than other types.
Private nonguaranteed debt is debt owed by private sector borrowers to external creditors on loans that do not benefit from a public sector guarantee by the debtor country.
Short-term debts increased from $1.59 billion in 2019 to $2.085 billion in 2020. Short-term external debt has an original maturity of one year or less.
Disbursements increased from $29 million in 2019 to $116 million in 2020, which is related to public sector debt. Disbursements are drawings during the year specified on loan commitments contracted by the borrower.
Principal repayments reached $263 million in 2020, higher than 2019's $256 million. Private sector not guaranteed debts accounted for $178 million of the principal repayments.
The report also detailed external debt of Iran by creditor type, as per which private nonguaranteed debt from commercial banks amounted to $894 million, higher than the other
Key Ratios
As per the Global Debt Report 2022, Iran's external debt stock to export ratio increased from 7% in 2019 to 14% in 2020, the highest since 2010, when the ratio was 20%.
The debt-to-export ratio is defined as the ratio of total outstanding debt at the end of the year to the economy's export of goods and services for any one year.
Iran's external debt stocks to gross national income ratio was 3% in 2020, whereas it was 2% in 2019. Short-term to external debt stock ratio was 38% in 2020, slightly higher than the 33% in 2019.
Multilateral to external debt stocks ratio, the ratio of debt owed to multilateral creditors to total external debt, was 3%, 1 percentage point less than 2019.
According to the latest report of the Central Bank of Iran seen on its website, Iran's total foreign debt was $9.031 billion by September 21. Medium- and long-term debt amounted to $6.57 billion. Short-term debt stood at $2.45 billion.
The government is set to repay $600 million as part of its overseas debt in the current fiscal year. Of the total, $166m is to be paid to the Islamic Development Bank for loans taken in 2012. Financial commitments of the Energy Ministry and its subsidiaries worth $244m are also on the repayment list for loans taken for economic development projects.
Reimbursements also include $64m owed to the OPEC Fund for International Development. Iran has to reimburse part of its debt ($56m) to the World Bank. The remaining foreign financial commitments are related to other development projects.
