Investors are \u200bshowing signs of diversifying away from U.S. \u200cTreasuries as global debt levels hit a record of nearly US$353 trillion by end-March, a report by the Institute of International Finance published on Wednesday found.<\/p>\n
IIF\u2019s quarterly Global Debt Monitor \u2060said that \u200bstrengthening international demand for Japanese and European government bonds contrasted with broadly stable demand for U.S. Treasuries since the start of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese trends partly reflect diverging debt trajectories, which are increasingly influencing investor allocation decisions,\u201d Emre Tiftik, director \u200bat the IIF for Global Markets and Policy, \u200cwrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder current policies, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to continue rising, and recent Congressional Budget Office projections indicate a further deterioration in the long-term fiscal outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n
This stood in contrast to debt ratios in the euro zone and Japan, which are projected to follow a \u200cmore moderate \u200bpath even with continued \u200cfiscal expansion, the report said.<\/p>\n
However, U.S. corporate bond markets continue to boom, supported \u200bby AI-related issuance and strong overseas inflows.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s \u2060borrowing push was one of the main drivers for global debt \u2060to rise by over US$4.4 trillion in the first quarter, the fastest increase since mid\u20112025 and the \u200bfifth straight quarterly increase, the IIF report said.<\/p>\n
Tiftik said the rise in U.S. debt had been largely driven by government borrowing.<\/p>\n
He pointed to a sharp acceleration in debt at the start of the year by Chinese non-financial corporate borrowers – predominantly state-owned firms – which significantly outpaced borrowing by \u2060the country\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
Outside the world\u2019s two biggest economies, debt across mature markets edged lower, while emerging markets, excluding China, saw levels rising modestly to a record US$36.8 trillion driven by government borrowing.<\/p>\n
Looking at key debt ratios, global debt stood at 305% of world economic output, broadly stable where it had been since 2023. \u2060However, debt ratios followed a similar pattern as \u200bdebt levels – trending lower in mature markets and rising steadily in emerging economies.<\/p>\n
Overall, the biggest \u2060increases over that period were recorded in Norway, Kuwait, China, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia – each recording gains of \u200cmore than 30 percentage points of GDP, the IIF report showed.<\/p>\n
The IIF predicted that \u200bstructural pressures – including aging populations, rising spending on defense, energy security and diversification, cybersecurity and AI-related capital expenditure – would push both government and corporate debt levels higher over the medium- to long-term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recent conflict in the Middle \u200bEast is set to further intensify some of these pressures,\u201d Tiftik said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Investors are \u200bshowing signs of diversifying away from U.S. \u200cTreasuries as global debt levels hit a record of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-653026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}