In the second quarter of 2021, the volume of global debt reached $ 296 trillion, follows from the results of a report published last week by the Institute of International Finance (IIF). Over the quarter, this figure increased by $ 4.8 trillion, and over the past 18 months, i.e., since the beginning of the pandemic, by $ 36 trillion.

The largest contributors to the rise in global debt in the second quarter were developing countries, which borrowed $ 3.5 trillion and brought their total financial liabilities to nearly $ 92 trillion. China borrowed faster than other developed countries, whose total debt, with the exception of China, reached a new record of $ 36 trillion.

The debt of developed countries, especially in the Eurozone, began to rise again in the second quarter after a slight decline in the first.

US debt in the last reporting period rose by $ 490 billion, which was a record low quarterly value since the start of the pandemic. At the same time, household debts grew at a record pace.

The total debt of global households rose by $ 1.5 trillion in the second quarter to $ 55 trillion. In the first half of the year, IIF recorded an increase in household debt burden in almost a third of the countries studied.