The IMF has sounded a warning to all countries over the surging public debts. This warning was issued on Wednesday by the Director, IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, Mr. Victor Gaspar.
Gaspar said: “Global public debt is very high and rising,” emphasising that countries should keep their house in order.
He said: “In 2025, it will rise above 95 percent of GDP. It is higher and growing faster than pre-pandemic.”
Gaspar stated this at the launch of the April 2025 Fiscal Monitor.
According to the IMF, 119 countries in the world have public debt higher than before the pandemic onslaught.
To address this challenge, “resilience is needed everywhere: countries should redouble efforts to keep their own fiscal house in order,” Gaspar added.
The Fiscal Monitor suggests three policy priorities: fiscal policy should be part of overall stability-oriented macroeconomic policies; in most countries, it should aim at reducing public debt and rebuilding buffers to create space to respond to spending pressures and other economic shocks; and third, fiscal, together with other structural policies, should aim at improving potential growth, thereby easing difficult choices between reducing debt, social spending or investments to increase growth.
“There is a sense of urgency in policy action,” Gaspar also said, adding that “there is still time to adopt policies that improve resilience, and there is still time to think through what are the most relevant vulnerability scenarios that apply to individual countries, to regions, or even to broad systems.
“And it’s very important to do that systematically so that one is ready if and when a crisis comes.”
