Russia rounded out the top three countries with the lowest public debt per capita.
Photo: Vladimir VELENGURIN. Go to Photobank KP
Russia’s national debt fell by 12% over the year and accounted for only 0.3% of global GDP, according to data from the World Bank and the IMF.
As a result, Russia finished in the top three countries with the lowest public debt per capita. The level of public debt per resident of Russia is $2,076. It would seem that the amount is incredible! But here, depending on what you compare it with…
India has the smallest public debt per capita at $1,316. Indonesia is next at $1,747.
The highest per capita debt among G20 countries, as before, is held by the United States: $104.5 thousand per person. This is 80 times more than in India and 50 times more than in Russia.
But among all countries in the world, Singapore has the highest public debt per person: $149.3 thousand.
If we take the volume of public debt as a whole, without calculating per capita, then in this case the United States ranks first in terms of public debt, China ranks second, and Japan ranks third. Russia ranks only 28th in this ranking.
Overall, global public debt increased by 5.8% over the year and exceeded $101 trillion. At the same time, economists note that the global economy is growing at a much slower pace and cannot keep up with the rising level of public debt. Over the year, the global economy grew by 4.2%.
– The level of public debt is the accumulated budget deficit. If the state does not have enough money, it borrows it. This can be done at home or abroad. And if things are not going well and the state cannot pay off its previous debts, it takes on new ones to cover them. And this pyramid of debt accumulates to finance the budget. The bigger the debt, the more dangerous it is for the country. In the United States, the closing of successive budget loopholes in recent years has led to its debt reaching 120% of GDP. That is, Americans owe 120% of GDP to external and internal creditors, which is more than the annual volume of products produced in their country. This is a lot, but they are not champions here. Japan has the largest debt – 264% of GDP,” Alexey Zubets, director of the Institute of Socio-Economic Research at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, told KP radio.
The expert noted that Russia’s debt accounts for 15% of GDP.
– This is mainly domestic debt, although there is also foreign debt – 53 billion dollars. The rest is domestic debt in rubles. That is, it cannot be that one day they will present us with our obligations and say: pay! Since the debt is domestic, both the government and the Central Bank always have the opportunity to reach an agreement with the holders of this debt, – said Alexey Zubets.
At the same time, he noted that the issue here is not whether Russians live better than residents of other countries.
– We are talking about whether our state finances are stable or not. And Russian public finances are much more stable than those of the United States, Great Britain and France, but at the same time our standard of living is lower than in these countries, although much higher than in India. Here we should consider not the national debt per capita, but the GDP per capita. So, our GDP per capita is two times lower than that of the Americans, but we must understand that the Americans live in debt, and we do not live in debt. If the Americans pay off all their debts, nothing will remain of their economy. An attempt to pay off the debt is equivalent to a major economic crisis for them. That is, in the United States half of the well-being of Americans is inflatable,” Alexey Zubets explained.
ONLY NUMBERS
The five countries with the lowest public debt per capita:
India-$1316
Indonesia: 1,747 dollars
Russia – $2076
Türkiye – $2800
China – $3000
The five G20 countries with the highest public debt per capita
United States – $104.5 thousand
Japan – 70.4 thousand dollars
Italy – 51.9 thousand dollars Great Britain – 51.6 thousand dollars
France – 40.3 thousand dollars
*According to RIA Novosti based on calculations by the World Bank and the IMF
