• Dakar launches a CFA400 billion public offering, its largest of 2025

• Funds will partly refinance short-term bank debt through longer maturities

• Heavy refinancing needs and rising debt keep pressure on domestic rates

The Senegalese Treasury has opened a public offering (APE 4) from December 2 to December 22 seeking CFA400 billion ($710.2 million). This is the country’s largest offering of this type to date. Structured across four maturities—3, 5, 7, and 10 years—at rates between 6.40 % and 6.95 %, the operation is part of an active debt-management strategy at a time when Dakar faces high refinancing needs.

Consolidated data show that this new envelope follows three earlier APE operations that raised nearly CFA1 220 billion in 2025. APE 1 mobilized CFA405 billion (vs. an initial target of CFA150 billion), APE 2 secured CFA364 billion (above the CFA300 billion target), and APE 3 surpassed CFA450 billion (matching its target). With this fourth CFA400 billion operation, Senegal is set to cross CFA1 600 billion raised through APEs in 2025 (syndication window), a record level on the regional market. On the other market segment (UMOA-Titres), more than CFA1 978 billion has already been raised this year.

Not only “new money”

Authorities say the new funds will not go solely to fresh projects. A significant share will refinance existing bank loans, often short-term, by replacing them with longer-maturity bond debt. The aim is to extend some deadlines, smooth the debt profile, and ease end-of-year cash pressure.

This approach is now common among WAEMU states. Finance minister Cheikh Diba notes about CFA500 billion in bank loans to convert, roughly 2 % of Senegal’s total public debt.

The proposed rates—between 6 % and nearly 7 %—reflect ongoing pressure in the domestic financing environment, and yields demanded by investors could be even higher. With public debt revised upward (above 130 % of GDP, including state-owned enterprise debt), fiscal space remains constrained.

On the regional market, Ivorian banks already hold about 42 % of Senegal’s sovereign securities. A large share of subscribers are foreign investors attracted by returns on local-currency debt, where default risk is seen as low (tax revenues remain solid) and the CFA franc’s peg to the euro reduces currency risk.

The operation buys time but does not eliminate future repayment obligations.

A broader challenge: external debt

In the medium term, the key challenge will be extending this “active management” strategy to external debt, which still represents about 68 % of total public debt. Heavy maturities coming due in 2026—especially eurobond-related payments—pose, according to several analysts, a major test for fiscal sustainability at a time when the country is struggling to secure an IMF agreement. Such an arrangement is essential to access concessional financing and consider a return to international markets.

Fiacre E. Kakpo