A top IMF official has called on seven of the world’s largest economies to bring their government borrowing under control more quickly, saying this would help the fight against high inflation and financial instability.
Vítor Gaspar, head of fiscal policy at the IMF, told the Financial Times that Brazil, China, Japan, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the US were likely to push public debt up by more than 5 percentage points of gross domestic product over the next five years.
By 2028, the world’s public debt burden was on course to match the value of goods and services produced in the world. “By the end of our projection horizon — 2028 — public debt in the world is expected to reach almost 100 per cent of GDP,” Gaspar said, adding that this was “back to the record levels set in the year of the pandemic”.