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Concept
External debt
Summary
A country's gross external debt (or foreign debt) is the liabilities that are owed to nonresidents by residents. The debtors can be governments, corporations or citizens. External debt may be denominated in domestic or foreign currency. It includes amounts owed to private commercial banks, foreign governments, or international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
External debt measures an economy's obligations to make future payments and, therefore, is an indicator of a country's vulnerability to solvency and liquidity problems. Another useful indicator is the net external debt position, which equals gross external debt less external assets in the form of debt instruments. A related concept is the net international investment position (net IIP). Provided that debt securities are measured at market value, the net external debt position equals the net IIP excluding equity and investment fund shares, financial derivatives, and employee stock options.
According to the International Monetary Fund's External Debt Statistics: Guide for Compilers and Users, "Gross external debt, at any given time, is the outstanding amount of those actual current, and not contingent, liabilities that require payment(s) of principal and/or interest by the debtor at some point(s) in the future and that are owed to nonresidents by residents of an economy."
In this definition, the IMF defines the key elements as follows:
Outstanding and actual current liabilities Debt liabilities include arrears of both principal and interest.
Principal and interest When the cost of borrowing is paid periodically, as commonly occurs, it is known as an interest payment. All other payments of economic value by the debtor to the creditor that reduce the principal amount outstanding are known as principal payments. However, the definition of external debt does not distinguish between principal payments or interest payments, or payments for both.
Official source
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