Developing countries paid out $741 billion more in principal and interest on their external debt than they received in new financing between 2022 and 2024—the largest gap in at least 50 years, according to the World Bank’s latest International Debt Report  released on December 3, 2025. 

Still, most countries gained some breathing room on their debt last year as interest rates peaked and bond markets opened up again. That enabled many countries to stave off the risk of default by restructuring their debt. In all, developing countries restructured $90 billion in external debt in 2024, more than any time since 2010. Bond investors, meanwhile, pumped in $80 billion more in new financing than they received in principal repayments and interest. This helped several complete multi-billion-dollar bond issuances. However, the funds came at a high price—interest rates hovered around 10%, about double those before 2020.

At this seminar, Evis Rucaj, Acting Manager and Program Manager for Debt and Financial Statistics at the World Bank’s Development Data Group, will share the main points of the report.   This online seminar will be conducted in English without interpretation into Japanese. 

Speaker:

Evis Rucaj
Acting Manager and Program Manager for Debt and Financial Statistics, Development Data Group, World Bank