With public debt accounting for 51.7 percent of GDP, each Vietnamese citizen bears nearly $600 of public debt, according to The Economist magazine’s global debt clock. With public debt accounting for 51.7 percent of GDP, each Vietnamese citizen bears nearly $600 of public debt, according to The Economist magazine’s global debt clock.

Vietnam’s public debt in 2009.

The idea of a debt counting clock is not new. The US has its debt clock at the Times Square in New York. The Economist has also created a debt counting clock, but for the whole world.

This clock keeps moving and the number of debt increases by several hundreds of thousand US dollars each second.

By 5.30pm, October 11 (Hanoi time), the total global public debt measured by this clock was $27.395 trillion and it soared to $39.792 trillion by 3pm, October 12.

According to The Economist’s debt map, Vietnam’s public debt in 2010 was $50.7 billion, accounting for 51.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). It means that each of 87.6 million Vietnamese people has to bear nearly $600 of public debt.

Since 2001, Vietnam’s per capita public debt has been on the rise. In 2001, public debt accounted for 26.6 percent of Vietnam’s GDP and per capita public debt was $106.

The Economist forecast that Vietnam’s public debt would decrease to 50.9 percent in 2011, but per capita debt would be $638.

The US, Canada and Western European countries are listed among nations with high public debt. For example, each French shoulders nearly $32,000 of public debt.

The Economist’s statistics is based on nations’ quarterly reports.

PV