Global debt rose to a record $ 281 trillion in 2020 – 3.5 times the size of the global economy itself. Within a year and a half, the volume of loans may grow to 300 trillion, Izvestia reports.
Debt increased by $ 24 trillion last year, a record pace. For example, in 2019 it grew by 10.8 trillion, while in 2018 it grew by only 3.3 trillion. Almost half of the increase in the debt burden fell on the advanced economies (USA, Japan, Eurozone, Great Britain, South Korea). For example, Japan has a debt to GDP ratio of 240 percent. Countries are in debt over spending on the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is completely incomprehensible how the world economy will reduce such an exorbitant amount of borrowed funds without significant adverse effects on economic activity,” – said in a report by the Institute of International Finance (IIF). The world is waiting for events similar to the Great Depression of the 20-30s of the last century, warns the general director of the VBC group Semyon Tenyaev.
Russia’s national debt for 2020 increased by 5.42 trillion rubles, amounting to 18.99 trillion rubles (17.8 percent of GDP). In the pre-crisis 2019, the national debt grew by 7.8 percent, or 976 billion rubles.