For the HIPCs, the debt structure is overwhelmingly public and publicly guaranteed, which accounted for 80 per cent of total external debt at end 1996.

I don't know.

How, people ask, will governments repay all of the hundreds of billions of dollars that they owe? As British Prime Minister David Cameron put it Government debt is the same as credit card debt it s got to be paid back.

In addition, given that local government debt comprises 27 of China s 2010 GDP, while central government debt and policy loans stand at 20 and 6 of GDP, respectively, the total public debt to GDP ratio is approximately 53 lower than Germany s. So, while China should not be complacent about local government debt, panic is unwarranted.

Options for lower debt burdens on Governments of heavily indebted developing countries include debt cancellation and debt swaps for sustainable development.

Due to the huge US budget deficit, the supply of American government bonds will increase astronomically in the years ahead. But there is no guarantee that demand for these Treasury notes among foreign investors including foreign governments will be sufficient.

Liberia apos s external debt to international financial institutions and other external creditors, inherited from previous Governments, imposes a huge burden on my Government.

Government borrowing remained very modest and the Government s outstanding debt will stand at 7.0 per cent of GDP by the end of the 1997 98 fiscal year.

The Government is continuing to guarantee the payment of debt obligations.

I don't know, Mammy.

I want you to buy me a government bond.

These flows, in turn, will depend inter alia on the effectiveness of measures taken by the international community to alleviate the external debt burden of heavily indebted African countries, which in SSA consists mainly of public and publicly guaranteed long term debt.

As for Chinese banks, the main problem appears to be exposure to ballooning local government debt, which, according to the government, totaled 1.7 trillion (roughly 30 of GDP) at the end of 2010. Approximately half of this debt was on their books prior to the crisis.

Fourth, there is no connection between the size of national debt and the price that a government must pay to finance it. The interest rates that Japan, the United States, the UK, and Germany pay on their national debt are equally low, despite vast differences in their debt levels and fiscal policies.

Treaties governing intergovernmental debt

In the end, debt relief has a positive impact on a country's balance of payments, as the Government transfers fewer resources to foreign creditors, but does not ease the budgetary burden faced by the Government.

Public and publicly guaranteed debt rose moderately, while bond financing fell dramatically by 40 per cent.

However, any HIPC process cannot start until the new government is in place.

Furthermore, the United States Government believes that the United Nations system is simply not the appropriate place to set debt policy.

National Governments may also be able to enhance local authorities' direct access to capital markets, domestic and international, by granting authority to municipalities to issue infrastructure bonds.

Successful management of sovereign debt that Governments owe to foreign creditors presents difficult challenges to many developing and transition economies.

The inflation pessimists worry that the government will actually choose a policy of faster price growth to reduce the real value of the government debt. But such a strategy can work only in countries where the duration of the government s debt is long and the interest rate on that debt is fixed.

The actors involved in shaping structural adjustment policies include the Government of the State concerned, third party Governments in their capacities as debtors, aid donors or otherwise interested parties, and international organizations.

Governments and international financial institutions could consider providing bond guarantees to those municipalities.

This could affect the assessment of the government s debt servicing capacity and foreign assistance requirements.

A fiscal crisis in the United States (owing to further political fights over the debt ceiling and another government shutdown).

Such tactics, in which banks are nudged, not coerced, into investing in government debt, constitute soft financial repression. But governments can go beyond such methods, demanding that financial institutions maintain or increase their holdings of government debt, as the UK s Financial Service Authority did in 2009.

Although the government s stimulus policies have increased the national debt, the debt GDP ratio remains relatively low, at roughly 37 . Public debt in Japan, by contrast, exceeds 220 of GDP.

During the first seven months of 2010, China not only refrained from buying any more US government paper, but even began to sell its holdings. Each month, China sold a net sum of about 7 billion in US government bonds.

His Government, which was extremely interested in the question of external debt, would participate in the financing of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative.

The Argentine Government undertook a first debt swap in June 2001 government bonds with a face value of 29.5 billion were voluntarily exchanged for longer term instruments.

As a result, the rating on the Government's recent bond issue has been upgraded.17

This implies a deceleration of the growth rate of public indebtedness.

Although governments may try to cram public debt down the throats of local savers (by using, for example, their rising influence over banks to force them to hold a disproportionate quantity of government paper), they will eventually find themselves having to pay much higher interest rates as well. Within a couple years, interest rates on long term US Treasury notes could easily rise 3 4 , with interest rates on other governments paper rising as much, or more.

A welcome development was the announcement by the World Bank that the Government of Burundi had met the economic targets under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative for international creditors to write off what would have amounted to US 1.5 billion in debt servicing.

Pressure on developed countries' governments to cut down on and or write off the debts of developed countries and to have more fair trade policies

The next step readily follows in order to repay, or at least reduce, the national debt, the government must eliminate its budget deficit, because the excess of spending over revenue continually adds to the national debt. Indeed, if the government fails to act, the national debt will become, in today s jargon, unsustainable.

Given that the assets and liabilities of the Fund are expressed in United States dollars, it is appropriate to develop the assumptions by reference to yields available on United States long term Government Bonds.

The budget deficit stood at more than 50 per cent and public debt at almost 90 per cent of GDP.

The Government raised US 1,000 million towards the restructuring of the public debt (reduction of debt service by US 80 to 90 million annually) on the international market at the end of March 1998.

Public deficits must be brought down to sustainable levels on a permanent basis, with a view to stopping the escalation of public debt.

NEW HAVEN The prices of long term government bonds have been running very high in recent years (that is, their yields have been very low). In the United States, the 30 year Treasury bond yield reached a record low (since the Federal Reserve series began in 1972) of 2.25 on January 30.

For several of the heavily indebted poor countries the share of government revenues that is devoted to debt servicing is larger than the education and health budget combined.

The Lao People's Democratic Republic has a proven track record for macroeconomic performance and meets the eligibility criteria, but the authorities have not availed themselves of HIPC debt relief.5

More recently, creditor countries have been concerned about the financial costs to member governments that have lent to Greece. But Latin America in the 1980s showed that creditor countries stand a better chance of being repaid (in expected value terms) when the debtor countries are actually able to grow.