UK’s Debt to Reach 320% of Annual GDP in 50 Years If Measures Not Taken, OBR Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The debt of the United Kingdom will reach 320% of the country's annual GDP in 50 years if financial turmoil continues to afflict the country's economy, and taxes are not raised, UK Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said on Thursday.
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"Factoring in a stylised estimate of the asymmetric costs associated with inevitable periodic shocks would push debt up to 100 per cent of GDP by 2047-48 and nearly 320 per cent of GDP in 50 years," the agency said in a statement, adding that even without successive economic shocks, the debt will reach 267% of GDP in 50 years.
In addition, if the UK increases spending on the defense industry from 2% to 3%, experiences a major cyberattack, and enters a global trade war, then the debt could reach 430% of GDP in 2071-72, the statement read.
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"Bringing debt back to 75 per cent of GDP – the level at which it stabilised in the Government’s pre-pandemic March 2020 Budget – would need taxes to rise, spending to fall, or a combination of both, amounting to a 1.5 per cent of GDP additional tightening (£37 billion a year in today’s terms) at the beginning of each decade over the next 50 years," the statement added.
In June, UK inflation rose to 9.1%, the highest figure in the last 40 years, according to the Office for National Statistics.
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