South Korea’s national debt is projected to near 60% of GDP by 2030, according to government data released Sunday and reported by Yonhap News Agency. The pace of increase is widely expected to accelerate amid slowing economic growth and mounting fiscal pressures.
The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 49% last year, up 3 percentage points from a year earlier, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in its national settlement report. This represents the largest annual increase in five years, following a 5.7 percentage-point jump in 2020 when the economy was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the national fiscal management plan submitted by the finance ministry to parliament in September, the debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to rise from 51.6% in 2026 to 53.8% in 2027, 56.2% in 2028, and 58% in 2029.
