IMF: Brazil’s post-pandemic debt to be world’s second-highest

A report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that Brazil’s 2020 economic performance could be the second-worst among middle-income countries. The fund foresees the country’s external debt — which is already at 89 percent of GDP — increasing to 98 percent by year-end. Among all 36 emerging economies under analysis, the only country predicted to fare worse than Brazil is Angola, where foreign debt is predicted to top 130 percent of the GDP.

The IMF release does not include data for Brazil’s neighbors Venezuela and Argentina, due to a “lack of trustworthy data.” While the former is enmeshed in a deep political and economic crisis, the latter is still looking for ways to repay the fund for the USD 44-billion loan that was approved exactly two years ago today. For other South American countries, foreign debt is estimated to rise by around 5 percentage points. Chile’s debts are predicted to remain steady at 32.3 percent of the GDP in 2020.

Since the start of the pandemic, IMF officials have warned about the economic impact that the lack of an effective public health response could have in Brazil.

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