‘Time may be running out’: global debt crisis reaches critical point

Eclipsed by rich countries' own problems, a crunch a decade in the making is coming to a head

Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund knows it. David Malpass, the World Bank president knows it too. An increasing number of countries are having problems paying their debts, and the crunch point is fast arriving.

The looming debt crisis has been a slow-burn affair, more than a decade in the making. It is not the number one issue under discussion at the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington this week, although if rich countries had fewer problems of their own it would be.