ON the face of it, the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) initiative has reduced Government’s appetite for borrowing going forward.

Projections for debt financing to be sourced from the domestic market over the next two years are placed at lower levels than the current fiscal year.

But, according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) document obtained by Caribbean Business Report, in 2012/2013 the Government will have to nearly double its level of borrowing from the domestic market as large principal repayments become due.

By the end of the current fiscal year, which runs to March 31, the Government is estimated to have borrowed $166 billion domestically. Projections place local borrowing at $150 billion and $154.4 billion over the next two fiscal years.

By the third year, however, the Government will have to find $296 billion from the local market as part of a $371-billion borrowing programme aimed largely at meeting principal repayments totalling $334 billion in 2012/2013.

It is not yet clear how much upward pressure the jump in demand for borrowing from the public will have on interest rates in two years’ time after rates were substantially lowered on account of the JDX, which involves the swapping of the bulk of public sector domestic debt notes carrying lower interest rates and longer tenors.

The lower rates are expected to yield an average rate on domestic debt of 12.25 per cent and save the Government $40 billion in its first year of implementation.

Finance minister Audley Shaw said that participation in the JDX, up to yesterday, reached “the 97 per cent mark”.

But the JDX was also supposed to sate Government’s voracious appetite for borrowing by changing the maturity structure of its existing domestic debt. For instance, domestic debt scheduled to mature through to 2012 totalling $390 billion would drop to less than $90 billion, assuming all holders elect the shortest available option.

Government’s external debt portfolio, which was untouched by the JDX, includes a US$400-million Goverment of Jamaica global bond that becomes due next year and a US$200-million Euro bond that matures in 2012.

Even the IMF US$1.27 billion stand-by arrangement, which the multilateral’s executive board approved yesterday, will have the Government making large sum payments by 2012/2013, when US$84 million in payments to the IMF will have to be made followed by a US$343-million payment in 2013/2014.

Under the IMF programme Govt will have to reduce fiscal deficit to virtually zero and reduce the debt to GDP ratio to 115 per cent by 2013/2014.

Achieving lower deficits was largely predicated on interest payments on domestic debt falling from $132.5 billion during the current fiscal year to $122 billion in 2010/2011, where it would stay for three years before falling again in 2013/2014.