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The Geopolitics of Debt – How Growing Global Debt Is Interacting With Geopolitical Shifts To Shape Outcomes For Lenders, Borrowers And Businesses The IMF warned in October that total global government debt would exceed $100tn by the end of 2024 and that global debt-to-GDP would hit 100% by 2030, underlining already-growing concerns around debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability. But the threat of unmanageable debt burdens could be further deepened by geopolitical uncertainty, where underlying shifts are both exacerbating the impacts of debt dependency and making remedies harder to construct. Key Takeaways 1. Rising debt is challenging governments in both developed and developing markets at a time when public spending pressures are mounting, especially in the areas of defence, healthcare and energy policy. This is driving awkward trade-offs and threatening political instability, even in markets that have traditionally been considered stable. 2. Greater diversity of lenders and less clear rules of engagement are creating a wider range of debt relationships, including ‘debt for influence/preference’, or shifts from debt to equity investments. This will accelerate already shifting patterns of influence and alignment, as well as complicating debt resolution efforts in cases of distress or default. 3. This greater volatility of both politics and economics will require sensitive policy-making to avoid a global debt crisis. Businesses operating globally must prepare for distorted and intensified debt-linked impacts, including through changes to cost of capital, currency volatility and sovereign non-payment (of both debt interest and contracts). To receive a full copy of our Signal report or to discuss what these policy implications might mean for your organisation, please contact info@gatehouseadvisorypartners.com. #Gatehouse #NeedToKnow #Geopolitics

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