Accumulated debt - debt accumulation

This refers to a country's foreign debt that has accumulated to an amount that is excessive in terms of its ability to repay. Developing countries need to import development materials from developed countries to develop their economies, but due to their delayed industrialization they lack major export products and have a chronic current account deficit. For this reason, they have received loans from developed countries, but after the oil crisis, such foreign debts accumulated to a huge amount, and the fulfillment of debt repayments became a major issue in international finance. According to statistics from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the public debt balance of developing countries ballooned from $50.6 billion at the end of 1967 to $151.4 billion at the end of 1974, $1.123 trillion at the end of 1987, and further to $1.7047 trillion at the end of 1994. This debt consists of (1) the accumulation of public debt, such as aid received from developed countries by non-oil-producing least developed countries and the poorest developing countries, and (2) the accumulation of commercial debt received by semi-industrialized countries from commercial banks in developed countries. Since the 1980s, the proportion of the latter has increased, which has been a particular problem.

[Rokuro Tsuchiya and Seiichi Nakajo]

Starting with Mexico's application for rescheduling in 1982, more than a dozen countries in Latin America and Africa entered into similar negotiations, and the number expanded to the Philippines and Eastern European countries. The 1980s became known as the "Lost Decade," and the problem of accumulated debt became a major issue in international finance.

This was due to a variety of factors, including a sudden increase in borrowings caused by sloppy and hasty domestic economic development, an increase in the burden of paying for oil imports due to rising oil prices, a stagnation of exports, mainly primary products, caused by the global recession, and a side effect of Reaganomics, which caused dollar interest rates to soar and interest payments to increase. A particularly big problem was that, despite the influx of huge amounts of petrodollars into the euro market, commercial banks in developed countries, which had few good borrowers during the global recession, provided large amounts of money in the form of sovereign loans, mainly to semi-industrialized countries such as Mexico, with little room for improvement. The inability to repay these loans would have shaken the global financial system.

In response, commercial banks in developed countries took measures such as rescheduling, selling loans on the market, and increasing loan loss reserves, but these merely postponed the problem and did not fundamentally solve it. As a result, the governments of developed countries, including the U.S. government, and international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, considered countermeasures. Initially, the Baker Proposal (J. Baker was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration) was based on the premise that the inability to repay the debt was due to a temporary lack of liquidity and that repayment would be possible in the long term (the "liquidity shortage theory"), but the Brady Proposal of 1989 (N. Brady was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in the G.W. Bush administration) was based on the "insolvency theory" and presented a countermeasure that included debt reduction.

It called for debtor countries to promote economic adjustment policies to improve their economic structures and to convert debt into equity, for private commercial banks to reduce debt, reduce interest payments, and agree to new loans, for creditor countries to provide additional financial support, and for international financial institutions such as the IMF to use part of their loans for debt reduction and interest reduction. Based on this proposal, 18 countries, including Mexico, had reduced their debts by a total of $60 billion by 1994, and there has been a net inflow of funds to debtor countries since 1991, bringing a temporary end to the accumulated debt crisis.

However, the accumulated debts of developing countries as a whole have continued to increase since then, and it is also true that the increase in short-term commercial debt contributed to the successive currency and financial crises of the 1990s, so the accumulated debt problem has not been completely resolved.

In particular, the external debt of low-income countries was $332.6 billion in 1990, but by 2004 it had risen to $426.9 billion. In particular, heavily indebted poor countries, many of which are found in sub-Saharan Africa, have been unable to reduce their debts due to falling prices of primary commodities, which are their main export items, and underdeveloped infrastructure and education. This issue has been raised many times at summits (meetings of leaders of developed countries). In addition, one of the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations to eradicate poverty is strengthening efforts to address debt issues (debt sustainability). For example, at the 1999 summit, a debt reduction measure of up to $70 billion (for 36 countries) was decided, and at the 2005 summit, it was announced that 18 countries, including those in Africa, would be fully exempt from debts of approximately $40 billion owed to international organizations. In addition, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) such as the Jubilee Debt Campaign are carrying out debt cancellation campaigns.

[Seiichi Nakajo]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

返済能力からみて過大な額にまで累積された一国の対外債務をいう。発展途上国は自国の経済開発のため先進諸国より開発資材を輸入する必要がある反面、工業化の遅れから有力な輸出品に乏しく、経常収支は恒常的に赤字を続けてきた。このため先進諸国から借款を受けてきたが、石油危機後このような対外債務は巨額に累積し、債務支払いの履行が国際金融上重大な問題となった。国際復興開発銀行（世界銀行）の統計によれば、発展途上国の公的債務残高は1967年末の506億ドルから1974年末の1514億ドル、1987年末には1兆1230億ドル、さらに1994年末には1兆7047億ドルにもふくれあがった。この債務には、(1)非産油後発途上国や最貧途上国が先進国から受けた援助などの公的債務累積と、(2)中進工業国が先進国の商業銀行から受けた商業債務累積があるが、1980年代に入ってからはとくに後者の比重が高まったことが問題であった。

［土屋六郎・中條誠一］

　1982年に、メキシコがリスケジューリング（債務返済繰り延べ）を申請したことを皮切りに、中南米およびアフリカでそれぞれ十数か国が同様の交渉に入り、さらにフィリピンや東欧諸国へと拡大。1980年代は「失われた十年」とよばれ、累積債務問題が国際金融上の重大問題となった。

　それには、杜撰(ずさん)で性急な国内経済開発によって、借り入れが急増したこと、石油値上げによって、石油輸入代金支払いの負担が増加したこと、逆に一次産品主体の輸出が、世界不況によって停滞したこと、レーガノミックスの副作用で、ドル金利が高騰し、支払い金利負担が増加したことなど、種々の要因が作用したためである。とりわけ、膨大なオイル・ダラーがユーロ市場に流入したにもかかわらず、世界不況のなかで優良な貸先の乏しかった先進国商業銀行が、ソブリン・ローンとしてメキシコのような中進工業国を中心に、大量かつ安易な資金供与をしたことが大きな問題であった。その返済不能は、世界の金融システムを揺るがすことになったからである。

　これに対し、先進国商業銀行は、リスケジューリング、貸付債権の市場売却、貸倒引当金の積増しなどの対応を講じたが、これは問題の先延ばしにすぎず、根本的解決にはならなかった。そのため、アメリカ政府等先進国政府、IMFや世界銀行といった国際金融機関により、対応策が検討された。当初は、ベーカー提案（J・ベーカーはアメリカのレーガン政権の財務長官）のように、債務返済不能は一時的な流動性不足にあり、長期的には返済可能との前提（「流動性不足説」）に立っていたが、1989年のブレディ提案（N・ブレディはアメリカのG・W・ブッシュ政権の財務長官）では、「支払い不能説」に立って、債務削減を盛り込んだ対応策が提示された。

　債務国は、経済構造の改善のための経済調整政策と債務の株式化を推進すること、民間商業銀行は、債務削減、利払い軽減、新規融資に応じること、債権国は、追加的な資金支援を図ること、IMF等国際金融機関は、融資の一部を債務削減、利子軽減に充当することという内容であった。この提案に基づき、メキシコをはじめ、18か国で、1994年までに合計600億ドルの債務が削減され、1991年からは債務国への純資金流入もみられ、累積債務危機は一応の終息をみた。

　しかし、発展途上国全体の累積債務は、その後も増加傾向にあり、また商業ベースの短期債務の増加が、1990年代の相次ぐ通貨・金融危機発生をもたらしたことも事実であり、累積債務問題が完全に解消したわけではない。

　とくに、低所得国の対外債務は1990年で3326億ドルであったが、2004年には4269億ドルに達し、とくにサハラ以南のアフリカに多くみられる重債務貧困国では、主要輸出品の一次産品の価格低下、インフラや教育の未整備などから、債務削減が実現できずにいて、サミット（先進国首脳会議）でも、この問題がたびたび取り上げられた。また、国連による貧困撲滅を目ざした「ミレニアム開発目標」の一つとして、債務問題への取組み強化（債務の持続可能性）があげられている。たとえば1999年のサミットでは、最大700億ドル（対象国36か国）の債務削減措置が決定され、さらに2005年のサミットにおいては、アフリカなど18か国の国際機関向けの債務約400億ドルを全額免除することを発表した。このほか、「ジュビリー・デット・キャンペーン」などNGO（非政府組織）による債務帳消し運動が展開されている。

［中條誠一］

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