Fiscal year ending 30 September

b Total public debt denominated in pesos and foreign currency.

Meanwhile, the volume of bonds outstanding declined by 13 per cent and its share in total external debt fell to 14 per cent.

In Yemen, total external debt has been rising as a result of substantial budget deficits. That process appears to have accelerated in 2004, and total external debt is estimated at some 6.6 billion.

b Total liabilities.

The table below presents the evolution of total external debt of the public sector, with a breakdown of creditors.

The external debt of SSA amounts to roughly 10 per cent of the total debt owed by developing countries to official creditors.

External debt rose by 574 million in 1996 to 1,856 million (18 per cent of net total public debt).

Overall, short term debt and total debt service also declined.

The remainder of the total external debt stock of Iraq, approximately 80 billion, is largely owed to official Arab bilateral and commercial creditors.

Interest payments on the external debt of developing countries now exceed total official development assistance.

At that point, a stock of debt operation in the Paris Club would also take effect, i.e., reduction of the stock of debt.

For the HIPCs, the debt structure is overwhelmingly public and publicly guaranteed, which accounted for 80 per cent of total external debt at end 1996.

Figure II.2 Total unliquidated obligations

Latin American debt indicators generally indicated a sustainable debt position for the region as a whole, with a debt service ratio of 12 per cent, debt stock to exports and to GNP ratios of 103 per cent and 43 per cent respectively, and a short term debt to reserves ratio of 71 per cent.

As regards the application of the adjustment, the Committee noted that since 1999 it had been based on the debt stock approach.

Their total external debt amounted to 245 billion at end 1996 (see table 3).

The gravity of the situation was even clearer in the case of Africa, since at the end of 1995 the accumulated principal and interest arrears on long term debt constituted nearly one third of external debt.

The bulk of that amount comprised long term debt (80 per cent), while short term debt accounted for 18 per cent of the total.

6. Total Asian external debt rose by six per cent to an estimated amount of 666 billion at end 1997.

As a group, those countries debt burden remains severe, with a debt stock to export ratio of well over 300 per cent (far above the 200 per cent threshold used to indicate a debt overhang) and a debt stock to GNP ratio of 127 per cent in 1996 after several years of improvement.

In general, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries maintain low or modest external debt stocks and debt to GDP ratios and have accumulated substantial foreign assets.

26. During the period 1985 90, the country apos s external debt grew geometrically at 2.5 a year. In 1990 aggregate debt stood at US 4,312.9 million this growth was primarily due to arrears in international payment commitments. Service payments on this debt fell by 47.9 compared with their 1987 level.

This led to increased concern about the levels of internal debt and total debt and the implications for servicing the debt.

Arrears as a share of total debt

The Territory's foreign debt stood at 50 million, while the domestic debt was estimated at 40 million.5

12. Africa continued to experience a high debt burden despite a fall in total external debt of 2 per cent to 324 billion in 1996 and an improvement in its debt indicators.

In Saudi Arabia, the most highly indebted country of the Gulf Cooperation Council, total government debt increased to some 75 per cent of GDP in 2003 however, only some 23 per cent of total debt is owed to external creditors.

Public and publicly guaranteed debt continued to account for the major share of long term debt, at 83 per cent of the total, but the volume of private non guaranteed debt accelerated by 18 per cent and its share rose from 15 per cent in 1996 to 17 per cent of the total.

Debt servicing, which had reached 322 billion in 1995, accounted for over 30 per cent of the continent apos s exports.

The debt indicators show what would be expected to be a sustainable debt position.1 The debt service ratio measured 13 per cent, the debt stock to exports ratio 114 per cent, the debt stock to GNP ratio 31 per cent, and short term debt to foreign exchange reserves ratio 53 per cent as noted, however, those figures obscure diverse trends at the country level.

The total external debt of developing countries had continued to increase in 2003 by approximately 95 billion, or 4 per cent.

The debt stock and its servicing burden remained exceptionally high for the least developed countries, particularly in Africa.

10. Latin America witnessed a moderate increase in external debt of three per cent or 22 billion during 1997, bringing total external debt to 678 billion, attributable to a 4 per cent or 20 billion rise in long term debt and a smaller increase in short term debt.

The ratio of short term debt to the stock of foreign exchange reserves,3 which measures the ability of a country to meet its foreign obligations that mature fairly soon out of liquid sources of foreign exchange, is better suited for that purpose.

His delegation therefore supported the application of the debt burden adjustment based on the debt stock approach.

19. The drop in external demand was met initially by an increase in government spending, financed by internal (1978 80) and external indebtedness (1978 81), with aggregate external debt rising from US 1,375.8 million in 1978 to US 2,549.1 million in 1981.

Of this proposed increase, 41 posts are in the field while 39 are at headquarters, thus allocating 69.1 per cent of the total number of posts to the field and 30.0 per cent to headquarters.

Total debt relief accorded to the 27 countries that have reached either the decision point or the completion point, together with other debt relief measures, represents a two thirds reduction in these countries' overall debt stock.

As of 31 December 1993, the interest owed on the external public debt totalled some B 1,518 million. Adding this to the principal outstanding on the contractual public debt gives a total public sector debt of B 7,228.9 million at the end of 1993.

In the first quarter of 1998, net public debt increased by 4 per cent to reach US 15 billion, of which 17 per cent was foreign debt (US 2.5 billion or about 16 per cent of GDP).

Section 1514 provides for additional time to be given to foreign creditors with respect to notice and submission of claims.

In that event, and notwithstanding the view of some members that the overall level of debt itself constituted a significant burden, the Committee also agreed that the adjustment should be based on data on actual principal repayments, rather than on a proportion of debt stocks, as in the current scale of assessments.

The data on foreign bank debt of those countries (see table 5) provide an indication of that concentration, with short term liabilities representing more than 60 per cent of the total at the end of 1997.

The unliquidated obligations charged during the last month of the fiscal year constituted 80 per cent of the total of unjustified unliquidated obligations.