WASHINGTON: The global debt has reached to an all-time high of $184 trillion, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a recent update of its Global Debt Database.
The world’s debt now exceeds $86,000 per person, more than two and half times the average income per-capita, the data showed.
The updated figure equals 225 per cent of the global GDP in 2017.
According to the IMF statement released with the data, “The top three borrowers in the world (United States, China, and Japan) account for more than half of global debt, exceeding their share of global output.”
The update for the first time offers a glimpse of global debt developments up to 2017.
“By including both the sovereign and private sides of borrowing for the entire world, the database offers an unprecedented picture of global debt in the post-World War II era,” said a statement issued with the data.
The $184trillion figure released on Friday, is $2trillion higher than the estimated number IMF released in October.
On Dec 1, the IMF had put the global debt at $182tr, warning highly indebted emerging-markets and low-income countries.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, in a recent speech at the G20 summit in Argentina, identified rising global debt as one of the challenges that world leaders had to address.
She said she was concerned that the total value of global debt has rocketed by 60 per cent in the decade since the financial crisis reached an all-time high.
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