The Global Bankers
The Global Bankers


The following data is derived from the Bank of International Settlements quarterly report on international loans.

Table 1. Consolidated foreign claims by region (billions of US$), mid-2002. The first column on the left are the debtor regions; the next column shows how much they owe, and the next five columns show how much they owe to banks headquartered in each region. For example, 13.2% of Asia/Pacific's $395.3 billion of foreign debt is owed to Japanese banks.

Debtor regionTotal debtEuropean banks
(excl. UK)
UK banksJapanese
banks
US banksOther banks
Latin America/Caribbean491.956.5%5.5%2.1%26.6%9.8%
Asia/Pacific395.332.7%16.2%13.2%19.3%18.6%
Europe293.480.1%3.7%1.2%7.1%7.9%
Middle East/Africa152.753.8%17.9%3.6%9.7%15.0%
Total developing countries1,333.354.2%9.7%5.3%18.2%12.6%
Developed countries10,073.457.4%8.8%8.2%5.3%20.3%
Offshore banking centers935.833.9%24.8%17.8%8.3%15.2%
World total12,419.355.1%10.3%8.6%6.9%19.1%


Table 2. Top 50 Debtor Countries, BIS Data on Consolidated International Claims (billions of US$), mid-2002. The first column is the debtor country, the second is how much each country owes, and the next four columns show how much they owe to banks headquartered in each region.

Debtor CountryTotal DebtContinental
European Banks
Japanese
Banks
UK BanksUS Banks
Mexico201.655%1%3%32%
Brazil123.955%3%10%24%
South Korea86.332%11%12%26%
Poland71.178%1%1%9%
China53.237%19%13%12%
Malaysia51.516%11%27%16%
Taiwan43.528%8%15%38%
Chile43.167%3%4%16%
Czech Rep43.091%0%2%4%
Argentina42.157%3%7%25%
Thailand41.331%25%11%10%
Turkey38.457%4%8%9%
India35.932%6%26%21%
Russia35.673%1%2%10%
Indonesia35.147%20%10%9%
Hungary30.785%1%3%7%
Philippines22.537%12%12%22%
South Africa20.850%6%9%17%
Venezuela18.166%3%9%15%
Saudi Arabia16.435%9%20%12%
UAE15.820%3%51%11%
Colombia 15.1 57% 5% 7% 24%
Peru 14.4 76% 1% 3% 14%
Morocco12.3 85% 1% 2% 2%
Egypt11.7 56% 2% 16% 14%
Slovak Rep11.5 90% 2% 0% 6%
Croatia11.4 91% 1% 2% 1%
Israel10.741% 1% 11% 14%
Malta8.336% 0% 41% 4%
Iran8.373% 2% 4% 0%
Cyprus8.059% 0% 9% 3%
Pakistan7.2 43% 4% 22% 15%
Kuwait6.3 51% 7% 19% 9%
Slovenia5.986% 1% 0% 0%
Uruguay5.2 57% 0% 5% 26%
Romania5.278% 0% 2% 13%
Estonia5.297% 1% 0% 0%
Qatar5.242% 10% 26% 3%
Algeria4.671% 4% 1% 15%
Cote d'Ivoire3.8 89% 1% 2% 6%
Tunisia3.7 77% 0% 2% 10%
Lithuania3.793% 2% 1% 1%
Oman3.539% 11% 36% 3%
Trinidad/Tobago3.528% 1% 8% 26%
Cameroon3.188% 0% 8% 3%
Latvia2.7 98% 0% 0% 0%
Angola2.684% 0% 6% 4%
Vietnam2.541% 10% 15% 15%
El Salvador2.326% 0% 5% 48%
Nigeria2.342% 2% 12% 29%
Mauritius2.346% 0% 34% 4%


Table 3. Composition of net US debts, mid-2002 (assuming US GDP of around $10.5 trillion).

CreditorNet US DebtNet Position
as % US GDP
Continental Europe$1,297.9 billion12.4%
Japan$365.4 billion3.5%
UK$267.2 billion2.5%
All creditors$1,920.1 billion18%


Table 4. Global Creditors and Global Debtors, mid-2002 (total loans owned minus total loans owed). Note that GDP figures assume 1.1 EUR = 1 US$ = 110 Jpn yen -- a polite way of saying, if the dollar crumbles, US debts will skyrocket.

Zone/CountryStatusNet PositionNet Position as %
Zone/Country GDP
Continental Europecreditor+$2,199.1 billion+32%
Japancreditor+$482.1 billion+11%
USdebtor-$1,920.1 billion-18%
UKdebtor-$369.2 billion-28%


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