…direct remittance inflows hit $148.73m
The country spent a total of $1.19 billion on external debt servicing between March and April this year, data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shows.
The amount is 142.18 per cent, or $698.63 million, higher than the $491.37 million spent on debt service payments in the corresponding period of 2024. According to latest data on international payments posted on the apex bank’s website on Tuesday, external debt servicing gulped $632.36 million and $557.79 million in March and April 2025 respectively.
Further analysis of the data indicates that debt service payments stood at $540.67 million in January 2025 and $276.73 million in February. This means that the country expended a total of $2.01 billion on external debt servicing in the first four months of this year.
New Telegraph reports that early this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a statement confirming that Nigeria had fully repaid the $3.4 billion financial support it received in April 2020, under the Rapid Financing Instrument to cushion the economic impacts of COVID-19.
“As of April 30, 2025, Nigeria has fully repaid the financial support of about $3.4 billion it requested and received in April 2020 from the International Monetary Fund under the Rapid Financing Instrument to help alleviate the impact of COVID-19 and the sharp fall in oil prices,” the statement said.
However, the IMF said that despite the full settlement of the principal, Nigeria will continue to honour additional annual payments related to Special Drawing Rights (SDR) charges, adding that the country is expected to make annual payments of about $30 million in SDR-related charges over the next few years.
According to data released by the Debt Management Office (DMO), external debt service payments gulped $4.66 billion in 2024 while the country’s external debt stock stood at $45.78 billion as at the end of December last year.
Meanwhile, the CBN’s latest international payments data shows that total direct remittances to the country for the months of March and April this year stood at $148.73 million.
The amount is 50.12 per cent, or $149.47 million, less than the $298.20 million recorded for the corresponding period of 2024.
Further analysis of the data indicates that total direct remit tances to the country increased by 130.69 per cent to $125.59 million in February this year compared with $54.44 million in January. This means that total direct remittance inflows for the first four months of the year amounted to $328.76 million.
