LONDON, Feb 22 Reuters The postpandemic rebound in world growth and inflation last year meant the amount of debt sloshing around the global economy saw its first annual fall in dollar terms since 2015, a widely tracked study has shown.

The Institute of International Finance report published on Wednesday estimated that the nominal value of global debt declined by some 4 trillion, bringing it fractionally back under the 300 trillion threshold breached in 2021.

With borrowing costs on the rise, particularly for emerging markets, the retrenchment was driven entirely by wealthier countries though, which as a group saw total debt decline roughly 6 trillion to 200 trillion.

In contrast, the amount of developing world debt hit a new record high of 98 trillion with Russia, Singapore, India, Mexico, and Vietnam seeing the largest individual rises.

Stronger economic activity and higher inflation meanwhile, both of which erode debt levels, saw the global debttoGDP ratio drop over 12 percentage points to 338 of GDP, marking the second annual drop in a row.

Again, though, the improvement was driven by developed markets which saw an overall 20 percentage points fall to 390. The emerging market debt ratio rose by 2 percentage points meanwhile to 250 of GDP, largely driven by China and Singapore.

Breaking the numbers down further, the IIF, a global banking trade group, estimated that the emerging market government debttoGDP ratio climbed to almost 65 of GDP in 2022 from just under…