Russian Debt May Reach 585% of GDP on Demographic Woes

Russia’s debt may surge to 585 percent of gross domestic product by 2050 as the population declines and the government ramps up spending, pushing the credit rating below investment grade, Standard & Poor’s said.

The population will probably shrink to 116 million by 2050 from 140 million last year, forcing the government’s age-related expenditures to rise to 25.5 percent of GDP from 13 percent in 2010 in the rating agency’s “base-case scenario,” S&P credit analysts led by Frank Gill in London said in a research note e-mailed today and dated Feb. 8.