Kazakhstan allocates 11.1% of all government spending to net interest payments on its state debt, equivalent to 3.8% of the country's gross domestic product. By this measure, the republic significantly outpaces the average for countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (4.9%) and even the United States (10.7%), even though Kazakhstan's state debt itself remains among the lowest in the world — around 22% of GDP, infohub.kz reports.

Economist Andrey Chebotarev reached these conclusions in his Telegram channel Finance.kz, after analysing OECD data for 2025 on net interest payments — that is, payments on borrowings minus the state's interest income.

The top 10 countries by share of debt payments in budget expenditures, according to OECD data, are as follows: the US — 10.7%, Italy — 10.1%, Greece — 9.6%, Brazil — 9.5%, Portugal — 8.5%, the UK — 8.1%, Mexico — 7.5%, Canada — 6.8%, Colombia — 6.8%, India — 6.6%. The average across OECD countries stands at 4.9%.

As the economist notes, the main reason for such high payments lies in the high cost of raising funds and the structure of the borrowing portfolio.

"With state debt at 22% of GDP, one of the lowest in the world, we pay 11% of the budget! We borrow very expensively. The structure of the portfolio hits us harder than the size of the debt itself," Chebotarev writes.

The expert stresses that the OECD ranking clearly confirms: the key problem is not the amount of borrowing, but how it is managed. The high cost of servicing drains funding from other critical sectors of the country.

"Every percentage point that goes to creditors is money that does not go to schools, roads or healthcare," the Finance.kz publication notes.

According to Chebotarev, countries with a high cost of debt risk falling into a vicious circle: servicing borrowings requires new loans, which further increases obligations.

"It is practically impossible to break out of this circle without GDP growth or painful fiscal consolidation," the expert concludes.

Earlier, Kursiv wrote that Kazakhstan's total state and state-guaranteed debt, including debt under state guarantees, reached 40.9 trillion tenge as of 1 July 2026. During the second quarter, the figure grew by 1.84 trillion tenge, or 4.7%.