Debt of 73 low-income countries at end of 2019 was up 9.5% on previous year.

A new World Bank study showed that the external debt of the 73 countries currently eligible to have this year’s repayments suspended stood at $744bn (£568bn) at the end of 2019 – an increase of 9.5% on 2018.

Many countries have approached the IMF and the World Bank for short-term emergency assistance, around twice the number that requested assistance in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Crisis

There is growing concern of an imminent debt crisis among low-income countries struggling to keep up the payments on money borrowed from a mix of public and private creditors over the past decade.

The G20 group of large economies is reportedly poised to extend a multibillion-dollar debt freeze for the world’s poorest countries to help them weather the coronavirus crisis, and may adopt a common approach to dealing with longer-term debt restructuring, however the G20 negotiators “face resistance from China, Turkey and India” Reuters reports.