May 20, 2022
Iran is tied for the world’s fourth lowest foreign debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, according to a listing published by Wikipedia.
The claim is not surprising, as Iran, under both the monarchy and the Islamic Republic, has always striven to minimize foreign debt, in response to the humiliation Iran suffered under the Qajar Dynasty and its propensity to borrow huge sums from Europe.
As updated April 16, Brunei and Liechtenstein are tied for first place with the lowest debt ratio because neither has any foreign debt.
Turkmenistan ranked third with foreign debt of 1 percent of GDP.
Tied for fourth with foreign debt of 2 percent of GDP were Iran, Nigeria and Algeria. Next on the list is Afghanistan at 7 percent.
According to the statistics, Iran’s foreign debt stands at $7.12 billion, which means the share of each Iranian comes to about $84.
The figures for other major countries are 20 percent for India, 29 percent for China, 31 percent for Saudi Arabia, 32 percent for Russia, 33 percent for South Korea and Israel, 44 for Iraq, 59 percent for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 72 percent for Argentina, 63 percent for Turkey, 96 percent for Japan, 102 percent for the United States, 143 percent for Canada, 165 percent for Germany, 169 percent for Sweden, 181 percent for Norway, 223 percent for Finland, 285 percent for Switzerland, 345 percent for Britain, 471 percent for Singapore, with the highest being 2,007 percent for Mauritius.
Most of the countries recognized as responsible economic powers have a higher ratio of foreign debt, largely because foreigners see them as economically responsible and are willing to buy their debt.
The figures used in the list are compiled from different sources and are not all for the same year. Most of the figures come from the CIA World Factbook and the Euromoney Institutional Investors Co. The figures for Iran come from December 2016, but are not believed to have changed significantly since then.
Foreign debt is the portion of a country’s debt that is borrowed from foreign lenders including commercial banks, governments and international financial institutions.
