Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Ryan Straughn has reported that the Government of Barbados has repaid more than it has borrowed over the past seven years.
Delivering the 2025 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposal, Straughn outlined that between June 2018 and March 2025, the Government borrowed a total of $8.443 billion, while repayments amounted to $9.362 billion.
He detailed that from June 2018 to March 2019, $428 million was borrowed and $484 million was repaid.
Between 2019 and 2020, borrowing stood at $340 million while repayments totalled $627 million.
In the 2020 to 2021 period, $1.2 billion was borrowed and $955 million was repaid.
For the fiscal year 2021 to 2022, the Government borrowed $913 million and repaid $765 million.
From 2022 to 2023, $1.38 billion was borrowed, with $1.36 billion repaid.
In the 2023 to 2024 period, borrowing reached $1.37 billion, while $1.34 billion was repaid.
Between 2024 and 2025, the Government borrowed $1.639 billion and repaid $1.835 billion.
Straughn explained that $1.285 billion was borrowed during the COVID-19 pandemic to support families and businesses, laying the foundation for the recovery the country is now seeing.
He stated that Barbados’ debt level stood at 101 per cent of GDP at the end of February 2025, but without the impact of the pandemic, it would have been 92.2 per cent.
The debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to continue declining in the years ahead.
