Public debt $6773.6M

Press, 9 December 1982, Page 1

Public debt $6773.6M

Parliamentary reporter The total public overseas debt was $6773.6 million at November 30, the Minister of Finance, Mr Muldoon, told Parliament yesterday. The foreign indebtedness of the Reserve Bank at November 30 was $1373.3 million: Based on their latest public figures, the total overseas debt of public corporations was $1083.9 million, he said. Replying to a question by Mr C. J. Moyle (Lab., Hunua), Mr Muldoon said that there was no record of the level of the outstanding indebtedness of the private sector or of the cost of servicing the debts. There was not enough information to give an estimate of the figures.

He said that the latest figures of the cost of servicing the foreign debt were from March this year, when the cost of servicing the total public debt was $416,265 million. At that time the cost of servicing the Reserve Bank overseas debt was $91,028 million. In reply to another question. Mr Muldoon declined to reveal the estimated growth in the gross domestic product for the 1982-1983 year. The forecasts made by the Government’s economic advisers were confidential, he said. He did not say whether a suggestion by Mr Peter Neilson (Lab., Mirimar) that a 2 per cent decline in G.D.P. had been forecast was correct.