A Survey of the External Debt Situation in Asian Developing Countries-1985

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to review the external debt situation in Asian developing countries (ADCs) at the end of 1985, the latest year for which comprehensive data are available. There are two sources of external debt data of developing countries: the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Significant inprovements have been made in the presentation of the data of these two agencies during the past few years. Presently, however, the coverage of OECD data is generally believed to be broader than that of World Bank data. First, OECD and the World Bank report the debt of 155 and 108 developing countries, respectively. Second, it appears that OECD captures more of the private non-guaranteed debt and short-term debt than the World Bank. Hence, OECD external debt estimates tend to be bigger globally, across regional groups and across individual countries, as seen in Table 1.