Generally the 1990s have seen foreign debt hover at or just above 40 per cent. We have perhaps even become complacent about the foreign debt position. He also cited IMF estimates of the external debt of other countries, these being reproduced in the table below. While Australia's net foreign debt is not the highest on the list, only New Zealand is significantly higher. Some other interesting features of the table are worth commenting upon.
Every debt is held by someone else who treats it as an asset.
The same applies to external debts-a negative entry indicates that residents of that country hold more debt incurred by overseas borrowers than those residents have incurred overseas. Japan is the largest creditor country by size, though the largest as a proportion of GDP is Switzerland. Overall the total of all countries' net external debt should sum to zero. There has been a view that the foreign debt incurred by governments is a problem for the nation while private debt incurred overseas is only an issue for the individual borrower. The unfolding Asian financial crisis illustrates the problems that can be associated with foreign debt, even if it is mainly private foreign debt.