India's debt ratio likely to be 84% of its GDP by end of 2022: IMF

13 Oct 2022 Evaluate

Paolo Mauro, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that India's debt ratio is projected to be 84 per cent of its GDP by the end of 2022, which is higher than many emerging economies, but its debt is a little bit easier to sustain. He said of course, India has a lot of special features being the most populous country in the world by now and being a very large, emerging economy. Stressing that it is important for India to now have a very clear medium-term objective on the fiscal, he said there's still not a whole lot of clarity on the fiscal anchor.

Mauro said the other things that are special in a way or distinctive compared with other emerging economies are that most of India's debt is in non-indexed domestic currency and there's a large investor base from India. So those are good features to have and that's what makes this debt a little bit easier to sustain. He said having said that, the rollover, the necessity to borrow every year is very significant. It's about 15 per cent of the GDP. So, in some ways, the debt vulnerabilities are something that one needs to keep an eye on and be mindful of the fiscal deficit.

He further stated that the fiscal deficit is about 10 per cent of the GDP right now. That is quite a bit higher than in most emerging economies. About six-and-a-half per cent of the GDP is from the central government the rest is from the states. He said ‘I think, given the global conjuncture and country-specific circumstances, inflation is a little bit on the high side... looking at all of those things, it makes sense to reduce the deficit, and to bring down the debt gradually over time.’ Another good thing for India is that growth is traditionally very high. That helps maintain that ratio at a stable level, maybe even bring it down if growth continues to be very strong. But without a reduction in the fiscal deficit, it would be difficult to, on the one hand, keep inflation in check and on the other hand, also reduce the debt ratio.


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