Guidelines for central government debt management 2022

The starting point for the Government’s guidelines decisions is the objective of central government debt policy adopted by the Riksdag, i.e. that the debt has to be managed in such a way as to minimise the cost of the debt over the long-term while taking risk in its management into account, and that the management of the debt has to be conducted within the framework of monetary policy requirements.

The central government debt has decreased as a share of GDP (gross domestic product) in 2021 after increasing temporarily in 2020. The recovery of the economy is expected to be faster than previously forecast and developments in 2021 are expected to involve a return to the earlier trend of a decreasing central government debt and borrowing requirement. The repayment of foreign currency loans by the Riksbank (the Swedish central bank) also has a negative effect on the borrowing requirement. A continued decrease in the central government debt is expected for 2022.

The guidelines decision for 2022 makes no changes to the steering of management compared with the preceding year.

The composition of the central government debt is to be steered towards:

• Foreign currency debt – the foreign currency exposure is to be unchanged.
• Inflation-linked krona debt – it is to be 20 per cent of the central government debt in the long term.
• Nominal krona debt – it is to make up the remaining share of the central government debt.
• The term to maturity (in terms of duration) of the central government debt is to be steered towards 3.5–6 years.