The International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday that the public debt situation worldwide could be more dire than most think, highlighting skyrocketing fiscal deficits in the U.S. and China.
Global public debt will rise above $100 trillion by the end of 2024, the agency projected in its annual Fiscal Monitor report. By the end of the decade, the IMF forecasts global public debt will reach 100% of world GDP.
The U.S. and China account for a significant share of rising public debt levels. If the two countries were excluded from calculations, the global public debt to GDP ratio would fall around 20%, the IMF said.
“Public debt may be worse than it looks,” the IMF’s director of fiscal affairs, Vitor Gaspar, said, adding that governments’ debt calculations suffer from an optimism bias and are prone to underestimation.
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www.cnbc.com/2024/10/23/global-public-debt-will-hit-100-trillion-by-year-end-says-imf.html