[WASHINGTON] The world is edging closer to a global debt crisis. The Iran war may have been the spark, but dry tinder has been piling up for quite a while.
After a decade of debt accumulation, higher interest rates and growing refinancing needs have left the global economy increasingly exposed to shocks. And with ongoing conflicts driving up energy prices, renewed inflationary pressures are testing the limits of the existing debt architecture.
The outlook is especially worrying for developing countries, where public debt totalled US$35 trillion in 2025, up 10.5 per cent in the space of a year.