The headquarters of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Post Staff
In the first quarter of 2025, the Cambodian government signed nearly $79 million in new concessional loan agreements with development partners, to meet financing needs in priority sectors. This brings the Kingdom’s public debt to over $12 billion.
The Cambodia Public Debt Statistical Bulletin, published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance on May 30, stated that in Q1 2025, the government signed $78.81 million in concessional loan agreements, equivalent to SDR 59.11 million. This represents about 3% of the allowable debt ceiling (SDR 2 billion) under the 100% multilateral framework. Compared to Q1 2024, the new loan agreements in Q1 2025 represented a decline of approximately 44%.
An international reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an SDR is a form of IMF reserve that can be converted into cash on demand, to supplement the official reserves of member countries.
“These loans are mostly highly concessional, with an average grant element of about 50%. The purpose of these new concessional loan agreements is to finance priority sectors of the government, aiming to contribute to long-term sustainable growth and to increase economic or productive efficiency,” explained the report.
As of the end of Q1 2025, including old debt, the government has a total public debt stock of $12.18 billion, 99% of it – $12.06 billion – public external debt (comprising of 61% from bilateral development partners-DPs and 39% from multilateral DPs) and 1% – or $118.33 million – public domestic debt.
The composition of the public debt stock is comprised of USD 48%, SDR 18%, JPY 11%, CNY 10%, EUR 8% and local and other currencies 5%.
Besides new loan agreements, the government made total debt service payments of $237.84 million in Q1. This included about $210.18 million for external public debt ($168.54 million in principal and $41.64 million in interest and other charges) and about $27.66 million for domestic public debt ($25.82 million in principal and $1.84 million in interest).
“The debt service payments in Q1 2025 increased by approximately 31% compared to Q1 2024,” added the report.
Minister of Economy and Finance Aun Pornmoniroth stated in the report that Cambodia’s current public debt situation is still assessed as manageable, characterised by sustainability and low risk.
This sustainability is attributed to Cambodia’s strong public debt management system, which includes: A sound regulatory framework, clear policies, strategies, and comprehensive operational procedures, adequate institutional capacity and human resources, and an effective information system for operations and data management, supporting debt risk analysis and monitoring.
According to the state budget, in the 2025 fiscal year, the government may borrow up to SDR 2 billion. Any borrowing under this limit must be in the form of concessional loans that can be repaid with favourable interest terms.
