By the Numbers: The cost of foreign owned debt

Ottawa – July 25, 2013

National Net Debt: Combined Public and Private Sector Debt:

• Out of 163 countries, 127 are net debtors while only 36 have a surplus (net debt is the total combined debt of a country’s public and private sectors, minus the debt owed to both sectors).
• 152%, the total national net debt of Seychelles as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, aka GDP (Seychelles has the highest net debt out of any country in the world).
• 294%, the total national net surplus of Singapore as a percentage of GDP (Singapore has the largest net surplus in the world).

Government Foreign-owned Debt:

• 112%, Greece’s total foreign-owned government debt as a percentage of GDP (the highest in the world)
• 0%, East-Timor’s total foreign-owned government debt as a percentage of GDP
• 19%, Canada’s total foreign-owned government debt as a percentage of GDP

Crippling Cost of Foreign-owned Debt:

• 55%, Lebanon dedicates more than half of its total revenue to servicing foreign debt – that mean’s the country spends more than twice as much on debt service as it does on health and education combined
• $4.9 trillion – the poorest 90 countries have debts totalling US $1.3 trillion, and the poorest 144 countries owe more than US $4.9 trillion.
• $23 million – the total amount of money that the world's poorest countries pay to the rich countries in debt service charges every single day.