Commercial borrowings under the country's private sector shot up significantly by $6.3 billion to nearly $25 billion during the nine-month period of the immediate-past fiscal year 2021-22.
Of the commercial borrowings, buyer's credit has increased rapidly, to $9.6 billion, up by nearly $4 billion, to March.
This is followed by foreign back-to-back letters of credit amounting to over $1.2 billion or up by $263 million during the nine months ending June last.
However, Bangladesh's total external debts rose by $8.5 billion in nine months to March to a total of $93.23 billion in a continuous rise that casts unwelcome effects on its foreign-exchange reserves.
Such a picture came up in a publication of the central bank which compiles the data from state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, nationalized commercial banks, and the economic relations division.
Foreign debt is money borrowed by the government, corporation or private households from another country's government or private lenders.
The total external debt-to-GDP ratio now stood at nearly 27% at the end of March 2022.
However, general government borrowings remained in a safe zone as most of the debts are long- term ones.
General government borrowing in March stood at $68.25 billion, up by $ 5.37 billion since June last.
Of the total government borrowings, more than 83% spawned from long-term concessional debts.
The observations from the economists come, incidentally, at a time when many countries are in pains for running out of reserves of the trading currency -- the US dollar.
