South Korea’s public debt surpassed $841.7 billion in 2013, the highest level in history
April 1, 2014 Leave a comment
Public debt hits all-time high last year
2014.03.19 16:43:37
South Korea’s public debt surpassed $841.7 billion in 2013, the highest level in history.
But the increase in public debt halved from a year ago.
The central and local governments owed 496.6 trillion won as of last year, and 45 non-financial state-owned companies either financed by the government or led by chiefs appointed by the government had to repay 412.1 trillion won, excluding shareholdings and investments, according to the Bank of Korea’s economic data system Wednesday. The combined debt in the public sector came to 908.7 trillion won, up 36.9 trillion won, or 4.2 percent, year-on-year (yoy) from 871.8 trillion won in 2012.
This is the largest debt since the method for compiling fund flow statistics was updated to the current method in 2003.
Public debt has expanded around 10 percent every year from 276.3 trillion won in late 2003, snowballing threefold in about 10 years.
But public debt climbed by the smallest amount last year since 35.9 trillion won increase in 2005, and at the slowest pace since 2003.
The debt held by the non-financial public companies rose 2.1 percent from 403.6 trillion won in 2012 to 412.1 trillion won in late 2013.
Of constituents of the governments’ debt, bonds ballooned the most by 26.1 trillion won, or 6.0 percent, from 437.8 trillion won in late 2012 to 463.9 trillion won late last year. The governments’ outstanding loans jumped 190 billion won, or 1.9 percent, from 10.1 trillion won to 10.3 trillion won during the same period.
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