Some selected levels of Public Sector debt in different countries
- US Gross Debt 2008 12,867.5bn 90.8% of GDP (EST) (US Debt)
- Japan National Debt 192% of GDP 2009 est) 836,521 trillion yen 2007
- Italy National Debt 115% of GDP (FT)
- UK National Debt 68% of GDP (UK)
Other selected Levels of Public Debt as a % of GDP from 2009 est
1 Zimbabwe 304.30 %
2 Japan 192.10
3 Saint Kitts and Nevis 185.00
4 Lebanon 160.10
5 Jamaica 131.70
6 Singapore 117.60
7 Italy 115.20
8 Greece 108.10
9 Sudan 104.50
10 Iceland 100.60
11 Belgium 99.00
12 Nicaragua 87.00
13 Israel 83.90
14 Sri Lanka 82.90
15 Egypt 79.80
16 France 79.70
17 Germany 77.20
18 Portugal 75.20
19 Hungary 72.40
20 Canada 72.30
21 Jordan 69.90
22 United Kingdom 68.50
23 Austria 68.20
24 Ghana 67.50
25 Malta 66.20
26 Cote d’Ivoire 63.80
27 Ireland 63.70
28 Netherlands 62.30
29 Philippines 62.30
30 Norway 60.20
31 India 60.10
32 Spain 59.50
33 Uruguay 58.70
34 Mauritius 58.30
35 Malawi 58.00
36 Bhutan 57.80
37 El Salvador 55.40
38 Albania 54.90
39 Kenya 54.10
40 Morocco 54.10
41 Tunisia 53.80
42 World 53.60
43 Cyprus 52.40
44 Vietnam 52.30
45 Panama 49.50
46 Thailand 49.40
47 Costa Rica 49.30
48 Argentina 49.10
49 Turkey 48.50
50 Malaysia 47.80
51 Croatia 47.70
52 Poland 47.50
53 United Arab Emirates 47.20
54 Brazil 46.80
55 Finland 46.60
56 Aruba 46.30
57 Colombia 46.10
58 Pakistan 45.30
59 Bolivia 44.00
60 Seychelles 43.90
61 Switzerland 43.50
62 Sweden 43.20
63 Bosnia and Herzegovina 43.00
64 Mexico 42.60
65 Dominican Republic 41.50
66 United States 39.70
67 Yemen 39.60
68 Bangladesh 38.20
69 Denmark 38.10
70 Montenegro 38.00
71 Serbia 37.00
72 South Africa 35.70
73 Cuba 34.80
74 Gabon 34.70
75 Slovakia 34.60
76 Taiwan 34.60
77 Papua New Guinea 33.70
78 Czech Republic 32.80
79 Guatemala 32.70
80 Latvia 32.50
81 Ecuador 32.30
82 Syria 32.30
83 Ethiopia 31.70
84 Zambia 31.50
85 Slovenia 31.40
86 Lithuania 31.30
87 Moldova 31.30
88 Bahrain 30.10
89 Indonesia 29.80
90 New Zealand 29.30
91 Korea, South 28.00
92 Trinidad and Tobago 26.70
93 Mozambique 26.10
94 Peru 26.10
95 Tanzania 24.80
96 Macedonia 24.50
97 Honduras 24.30
98 Senegal 24.00
99 Paraguay 22.10
100 Bulgaria 21.40
101 Ukraine 20.70
102 Saudi Arabia 20.30
103 Romania 20.00
104 Iran 19.40
105 Venezuela 19.40
106 Uganda 19.30
107 Namibia 19.10
108 Australia 18.60
109 China 18.20
110 Hong Kong 18.10
111 Botswana 17.90
112 Nigeria 17.80
113 Angola 16.80
114 Gibraltar 15.70
115 Luxembourg 14.50
116 Cameroon 14.30
117 Kazakhstan 14.00
118 Uzbekistan 11.70
119 Algeria 10.70
120 Chile 9.00
121 Kuwait 8.20
122 Estonia 7.50
123 Qatar 7.10
124 Russia 6.90
125 Libya 6.50
126 Wallis and Futuna 5.60
127 Azerbaijan 4.60
128 Oman 2.80
129 Equatorial Guinea 1.10
Source: CIA factbook – National debt by Country
Notes: Japan’s Public sector debt is very high. However, Japan has a high savings rate which makes it easier for the government to finance the debt. 90% of Japanese debt is owned by Japanese individuals. US has a low savings ratio and 25% of US debt is owned by foreigners. Nevertheless the National Debt of Japan is a real burden for the economy
An important factor is not just cumulative national debt, but, the annual budget deficit. This annual deficit determines the rate of deterioration in the public sector debt.
In the above list, the UNited States debt is given at just below 40% of national debt. But, a more commonly used statistics is gross government debt which stands at close to 90% of GDP
15 comments ↓
[...] problem. Japan for example have a National debt of 194% at the height of their recession. [See other countries Debt] [ . The US national debt is close to 65% of [...]
I don’t understand how a high domestic savings rate makes a high public sector debt sustainable. Surely 195% GDP public debt is a massive burden on the Japanese government via interest payments? UK public debt is about 45% GDP whilst we have a relatively low savings rate, how are these facts related? How are domestic savings linked to public debt?
[...] Readers Question: I don’t understand how a high domestic savings rate makes a high public sector debt sustainable. Surely 195% GDP public debt is a massive burden on the Japanese government via interest payments? UK public debt is about 45% GDP whilst we have a relatively low savings rate, how are these facts related? How are domestic savings linked to public debt? (from: List of National debt by Country) [...]
[...] List of Government debt by Country [...]
This list is crazy – the CIA list has china on – china doesn’t have any debt with the rest of the world – its a creditor!
I’ve written about this list here:
http://mickanomics.blogspot.com/2009/03/list-of-countries-by-current-account.html
Hi guys,
I was wondering if any of you have seen international time-series data on the total debt (e.g. public+ private). As far as I know, only US FED provides this kind of data called “total credit market debt owed”. World’s Bank WDI also report public guaranteed debt as well as private non-guaranteed for developing economies, but strangely enough not for the developed ones.
thanks.
How about Indonesia debt information?
[...] our indebtedness is not the worst in Europe, and is actually not the worst we’ve ever endured. It’s quite a lot smaller than the debt we [...]
[...] the UK’s debt will be 59% of GDP at the end of this year, 68% next year and 79% by 2013-2014. US national debt stood at 72.5% of GDP in September 2008. That was before Obama announced his trillion dollar rescue [...]
Could someone please help me answer these questions.
Who runs the IMF and World bank?
Which country’s are not in debt to them?
Im having trouble understanding where the money to pay back debt will come from, as every county I can think of owes them money.
Basically, Who has got it all????
What about Norway? I can’t find crap on it.
Marcus,
Japan’s debt is sustainable because the interest rates for yen denominated debt is practically 0%. If you have a savings account with the Japan post office (the biggest bank in the world by pure deposits), then your interest rate is 0.0001% p.a. The Bank of Japan keeps its interest rates low and so it is really a borrower’s market now.
Here is another extreme example. Assuming you get a fixed rate mortgage over a 35-year period, can you guess what the interest rate on it is? About 2.8%…
Hello
I have formulas that show that the budget deficit should not cover with the loan.
Formula for an isolated community with no bank credit.
1. Valid for all subjects: Sum (Cost) + Sum (Earnings) = sum (income)
2. For the State: The cost of the State + budget Decifit = Income Countries
3. For isolated community valid: sum (cost) + cost of State = sum(income) + income countries
4. Summing 1 and 2 we get: sum (cost) + + The cost of the state + sum (earnings) + budget deficit = Sum (income) + income countries
5. Subtracting 4 to 3 it follows: The sum of (earnings) + budget deficit = 0
Follows. All earnings in a community is equal to the budget deficit (negative).
Sequence. You can not repay the loan in a profit, because you need an even bigger budget deficit and to cover the interest.
The following is a lot of different things. You may choose to conclude on.
These formulas are valid for the planet Earth, and explain the debt. Stupid is what we can see that it is impossible to repay the debt, but insisted on going in the same direction. Ask Bank of Engand why. Because we were stupid to allow them to. We are now debt slaves as payment for community income rising credit (budget deficit). We are now debt slaves where profit of community paying with credit (budget deficit).
Forgive me on a bad translation.
Greetings from the Croatian
[...] cierto, en esta página de Economic Help es posible ver el nivel de la deuda pública para 130 países actualizado a diciembre de 2009. Así [...]
Moderator, do any countries have a national surplus
(as opposed to national debt)?
American citizens, our national debt is more or less almost 100 percent of GDP now, but was only 60 percent give or take 10 years ago, with a very recent sharp upward spike. fiddle with the values on this page (very good) to see
its now almost $40,000 per citizen now not including the crushing state debts such as California. Argentina and
Brazil had currency crises at lower GDP levels, time to wake up and tell your friends, or we will wake up some day and find out China and other countries are not buying our T-bills anymore. (China is at 18% debt to GDP- and they are bailing out our spending, shame on us!) When the rest of the world and China turn off the spigot maybe your nest egg will be worth 25 cents on the dollar or less and you will be saying “what happened?” I know this sounds crazy but what is crazy is $40,000 National debt per person when many are not making a living such as retired, children etc. It is a train wreck that we can avoid but cannot continue as the interest mounts. No entity can spend more than they make.
Lets not be another Argentina, read about their pain They were down to bartering goods, currency was worthless. Lets tell our elected officials we need higher taxes and lower spending! Because voters, nasty as that sounds, the Chinese will not piss away loans that we are reaching the point of not being able to repay, and remember look at the figures, they know more about finance than us…and we could default. Too bad, the dollar could have stayed the world currency but it won’t, we do not have the political will.
The Chinese Yuan will quietly become the international trading currency. Sad, we really had a good country here, and we are blowing it.
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