List of Countries with the Largest Debt
The World Bank maintains the database of Gross External Debt Positions of countries.The top five countries with the largest external debt are as follows:
| Country | External Debt in Millions(at the end of 2008) | Year-Over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 13,641,807 | 1.6% |
| United Kingdom | 9,388,012 | -19.9% |
| Germany | 5,250,499 | 1.8% |
| France | 5,001,696 | 2.4% |
| Netherlands | 2,439,864 | -6.1% |
The USA is the most debtor country with a total of $13.6 Trillion at the end of 2008.On a year-over-year basis this represents an increase of 1.6%. In order to see the creditors to the US, you can check my earlier post titled Top Ten Creditors to the USA. The country with the second largest debt is UK.Total external debt of UK stood at $9.3 T. Though this may seem large at first glance, it is actually good since the UK reduced their debt by 19.9% from 2007.All the top five debtor countries are developed rich countries.This is fascinating since these countries are able to borrow so much money to keep their economy moving forward.
The countries with the lowest amount of debt are:
| Country | External Debt in Millions(at the end of 2008) | Year-Over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| Armenia | 3427 | 15.1% |
| Kyrgyz Republic | 3467 | 8.8% |
| Paraguay | 3507 | 11.7% |
| Moldova | 4125 | 19.4% |
| Bolivia | 5923 | 9.1% |
All the above countries are small countries in the developing world. Armenia has the lowest debt at $3.4B. However this was an increase of 15.1% from 2007.
Some of the countries have been reducing their external debt.Switzerland the UK reduced the most at nearly 20% from 2007. Other countries that have decreased their debt in 2008 include Australia, Canada,Israel, Egypt, etc.
The list below shows the countries that reduced their debt in 2008:
| Country | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|
| Korea | -0.7% |
| Egypt | -2.2% |
| Uruguay | -3.0% |
| South Africa | -4.8% |
| Israel | -5.1% |
| Italy | -6.0% |
| Netherlands | -6.1% |
| Canada | -7.4% |
| Australia | -7.4% |
| Hong Kong, China | -7.7% |
| Belgium | -14.3% |
| United Kingdom | -19.9% |
| Switzerland | -19.9% |
 The countries that increased their external debt in 2008 compared to 2007 are:
| Country | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|
| Georgia | 26.8% |
| Japan | 24.6% |
| Ukraine | 20.4% |
| Hungary | 20.0% |
| Moldova | 19.4% |
| Malaysia | 17.2% |
| Bulgaria | 16.6% |
| Belarus | 15.7% |
| Slovak Republic | 15.6% |
| Armenia | 15.1% |
| Chile | 14.0% |
| Paraguay | 11.7% |
| India | 10.8% |
| Croatia | 10.1% |
| Kazakhstan | 10.1% |
| Turkey | 10.1% |
Georgia was the worst with an increase of over 25%.Hungary almost collapsed due to the heavy debt load before it was rescued earlier this year.
The external of a select few countries and the year-over-year change are shown below:
| Country | External Debt at the end of 2008 | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 262931 | 8.5% |
| Estonia | 27401 | 7.9% |
| Latvia | 42054 | 7.4% |
| Lithuania | 32469 | 7.3% |
| Russian Federation | 484726 | 4.0% |
| Mexico | 200393 | 3.6% |
| Spain | 2313643 | 0.7% |
| Hong Kong, China | 659931 | -7.7% |
Data Source: The World BankÂ
Latvia had $42B in debt as of 2008.The other Baltic countries of Lithuania and Estonia also have high debt levels. China had nearly $660B debt but that was a reduction of 7.7% from 2007.
Download: List-of-countries-with-their-debt-as-of-2008 (excel file)
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