SEOUL, KOREA - Unlike other regions in which per-capita debt ratio is on a downward trend along with the economic recovery, Asian countries, including Korea, see their per-capita debt ratio rise.
According to the Global Wealth Report released by the German financial company Allianz on September 24, the world’s 53 major countries saw the ratio of per-capita debt to per-capita GDP average at 65.1 percent as of the end of last year. This figure is down 6.4 percentage points compared to 71.5 percent in 2009.
Korea’s per-capita debt to per-capita GDP ratio, however, stood at 92.9 percent as of end-2013, the highest among Asian countries.
As for Korea and Malaysia (whose per-capita debt to per-capita GDP ratio is 86.8 percent), Allianz stressed, “If interest rates go up or economic recovery slows down, a large number of heavily indebted households, centering on the low-income families, could fall into defaults.”
