US interest rate rise to deepen debt crisis in developing world

The Jubilee Debt Campaign said that some of the world's poorest countries have seen the cost of repaying their debts -- as a proportion of government revenue -- hit the highest level for a decade. Government coffers have been depleted by lower revenues from commodity exports and the size of dollar-denominated debts has risen as the US currency has strengthened.

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Analysis by the Jubilee Debt Campaign showed that average government external debt payments across the 122 developing countries for which data is available have increased from 6.7% of government revenue in 2014 to 9.7% in 2016. That is the highest level since 2007.

It used IMF and World Bank databases to calculate how a fall in commodity prices since mid-2014 had depleted government revenues and how the strengthening dollar had raised payments on external debts, which tend to be owed in dollars.