Free and Open Access to
Public Finance Data and Analysis
data-chart
Sri Lanka Pays the Largest Proportion of Its Revenue as Interest Payment

The graph shows the gross debt as a percentage of GDP and interest payments as a percentage of revenue in 2020 for countries with the largest debt levels.  

A high debt to GDP ratio may not be very problematic as long as the government has the means of servicing its debt (by maintaining the market’s confidence) and its interest costs are not exceedingly high. Sri Lanka’s debt burden measured in terms of Debt to GDP is comparable to countries such as Greece, Japan or even the United States.

However, compared to all the countries for which data is available in the world, Sri Lanka has the highest percentage of interest payments compared to its government revenue in 2020. Sri Lanka’s interest cost to revenue ratio reached an unprecedented level of 71.7% in 2020.  While Sri Lanka pays more than two thirds of its revenue as interest cost, countries with much higher debt to GDP Ratios such as Japan pay only 8.2% of its revenue as interest cost. (More details on the ratio in previous years : https://publicfinance.lk/en/topics/Interest-Cost-Accounts-for-717-percent-of-Government-Revenue-1625468514 ). 

Note: The countries were selected based on the debt to GDP ratio exceeding 80% and were narrowed down based on data availability for 2020. 

 Sources : Ministry of Finance Annual Report 2020 and 2019 

IMF - World Economic Outlook ,2021 https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GGXWDG_NGDP@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD

Country 

Source of Interest Payments / Interest to Revenue Ratio 

UK 

House of Commons Briefing paper; May 2021 

Greece 

IMF Country Report – Nov 2020 

Italy 

Ministry of Economy and Finance  

Maldives 

Ministry of Finance: Budget in Statistics 2020 

Bahrain 

Moody's 

United States 

World Bank Data  

Bhutan 

Ministry of Finance: National BUDGET FINANCIAL YEAR 2019-2020 

Canada 

Fraser institute 

France 

Statista. 2021. Debt interest expenditure France 2020  

Democratic Republic of Congo 

IMF Country Report -2020 ( Projected Values

Seychelles 

IMF Country Report-2020 (Projected Values) 

India 

Ministry of Finance India  

Jordan 

IMF Country Report (Projected Values) 

Mauritius 

IMF Country Report ( Projected Values) 

Tunisia 

 Economic-research.bnpparibas.com. 2021 

Pakistan 

Government of Pakistan , Finance Division : FEDERAL BUDGET 2020-21 

Japan 

Ministry Of Finance : Public Finance Sheet  

2021-09-07
0 Comments
Post a Comment