At least here, India is good!

Given the ongoing crisis at Greece and the financial lurch it has left various banks, one would tend to think that today it one of the most indebted countries. But a look at IMF’s website shows that there are 10 more countries who are as bad or even worse off than Greece when it comes to owning money to IMF.

Data shows that 79 countries owed a shocking $68.82 billion in SDRs (special drawing rights) as on May 31 this year. In fact Portugal owes more money to IMF than Greece at $24.80 billion and second comes Greece at $23.45 billion. Ukraine is number three (big gap here) at $9.80 billion. Ireland owes $5.25 billion, followed by Pakistan at $3.61 billion. And the other top five debtors are Jordon, Tunisia, Sri Lanka, Cote d’lvore and Kenya. These top 10 borrowing countries owed $72.4 billion, or nearly 86% of the total amount lent by IMF.

In terms of region wise break-up, naturally European Union is the largest borrower from IMF, given Portugal and Greece, Of the total of $84.57 billion, EU owes IMF $64.61billion.

Whew! For once is such a list, it is very heartening to note that India does not figure out, putting us way ahead of so many of these nations, surely above Portugal too. There was a time when we were amongst the top borrowers with IMF and had to bend down to its conditions but painstakingly we have shrugged off that reputation. We have huge debts in India Inc but thankfully, our name does not figure out at least here!