Ukraine’s Public Debt: Current Status and Problems

In today’s conditions, it is quite problematic to pick out a State that does not use borrowings in order to further finance the needs of the State budget. Therefore, one of the most important problems of the economy of each country is the problem of changing the volume of public debt. The concept of public debt is immediately associated with a negative phenomenon. However, the experience of many countries shows the opposite – public debt is within the permissible limits of no potential threat to the economy. However, in Ukraine, its indicators in recent years have been steadily increasing and far exceeding the limits of the norm. This tendency is due to a number of factors on which the amount of public debt depends. The article is aimed at disclosing the theoretical aspects of the public debt and the State-guaranteed debt of Ukraine, as well as their differences. The structure of the debt and its volumes during 2016-2020 are researched. The views of foreign and domestic researchers on determining the concept of the aggregate public debt are considered. As result of the study, the current status of Ukraine’s public debt is reflected and the dynamics of both the public debt and the State-guaranteed debt in terms of their components have been analyzed for the past four years. The dependence of both the public debt and the State-guaranteed debt on the size of gross domestic product is considered. The share of the internal and the external debt in the composition of the public debt and the State-guaranteed debt respectively is analyzed. On the basis of the carried out analysis, the factors that affect the change in debt volumes, the main factors and causes that led to the growth of both the public and the State-guaranteed debt in Ukraine are defined, as well as the main trends and specific features of its formation. As a result, measures are proposed to overcome these problems.