Executive Summary
Foreign obligations declared by the private sector totaled US$ 67,542 million2 as of March 31, 2016. Of this total, US$ 64,023 million corresponded to external debts of the non-financial private sector and US$ 3,518 million to commitments of the private financial sector.
Since the end of December 2015, the Central Bank has adopted a series of exchange rate measures aimed at greater freedom in the movement of capital and with an impact on external debt flows. In this context, the external debt of the private sector fell by US$ 797 million during the first quarter of 2016, explained both by the decrease in the debt of the non-financial private sector (NFPS) by about US$ 511 million, and the financial sector (SPF) by about US$ 286 million. In the first quarter of 2016, the reduction in the external debt of the NFPS was explained by the fall in commercial debt by US$ 1,595 million (mainly due to the fall in debt from imports of goods and services by US$ 1,516 million), partially offset by the increase in financial debt by US$ 1,084 million (basically due to issuances of securities in the oil sector).
Liabilities for the financing of imports of goods reached a stock of US$ 22,725 million as of March 31, 2016, falling by US$ 858 million in the quarter. Among the debt cancellation mechanisms used during the quarter, the application of securities issued by the National Treasury to meet import payments and the use of own funds abroad, for a total of about US$ 1,000 million, stood out.
The foreign obligations declared by the NFPS for services totaled a stock of US$ 9,888 million as of 31.03.16, registering a quarterly fall of US$ 658 million (-6%), which represented the first net cancellation in 2 years and the most significant decrease since the beginning of the series, mainly due to the increase in payments through the foreign exchange market.
Fresh funds for new financial borrowings received during the first quarter of 2016 amounted to about US$ 1,520 million. The average rate of these was around 8% and the average term was 6 years. The oil sector received about 85% of the total raised in the quarter, basically by the issuance of securities in international markets for a value of US$ 1,000 million, with a term of 5 years and at a rate of 8.50%. For the first time since 2012, companies that do not belong to the oil sector issued debt securities for about US$ 360 million.
The average life of the private sector’s external debt was 2.04 years.
