WASHINGTON, April 23. /TASS/. Global public debt will gain 2.8 percentage points this year and could reach 117% of global GDP by 2027, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its Fiscal Monitor report.
"Major policy shifts underway have heightened global uncertainty. The series of recent tariff announcements by the United States, and countermeasures by other countries have increased financial market volatility, weakened growth prospects, and increased risks. They come in the context of rising debt levels in many countries and already strained public finances, which in many cases will also need to accommodate new and permanent increases in spending, such as defense," the report said.
"We project global public debt to increase by 2.8 percentage points this year - more than twice the estimates for 2024 - pushing debt levels above 95% of gross domestic product," the IMF said.
Debt risks were already elevated, IMF analysts noted. According to the Fiscal Monitor’s debt-at-risk, which utilizes data up to December 2024, in a severely adverse scenario global public debt could reach 117% of GDP by 2027, which "would represent the highest level since World War II, exceeding reference projections by almost 20 percentage points," the authors of the report said.