10 Countries With Highest Debt In The World

By siliconindia | Thursday, 12 September 2013, 12:35 Hrs

2. Venezuela

Rank-2

Gross foreign debt and foreign debt payments- 260 percent

Venezuela experienced a major banking crisis in 1994 when the government had to take over almost 17 of the country’s 49 commercial banks. However, the economy slightly recovered after the oil prices came up in 2001. The economy was highly compressed in 2009-10 due to sharp drop in oil prices. There was a sharp inflation of about 26 percent in 2011 and 21 percent in 2012 due to increase in consumption and supply problems.

3. Turkey

Rank-3

Gross foreign debt and foreign debt payments- 152 percent

The country had a quasi-statist economy during 1923 to 1983. The economy has been shifted to a private sector model in 1983, after the then Prime Minister, Turgut Özal, brought reforms to modify the statist approach to a more market-based model. However, the reforms led to large amount of foreign loans and were eventually followed by sharp recessions and financial crisis in 1994, 1999 and 2001. The fiscal and financial reforms adopted after the 2001 crisis has strengthen the economy but the country’s dependence on short term investment to meet its large trade deficit is proving detrimental to the economy. In the end of 2012, the stock value of FDI was $117 billion.