Korea's financial debt-to-GDP ratio reaches nearly 100% in 2016

The ratio of South Korea's financial debt to gross domestic product reached nearly 100 percent last year amid rapidly rising household lending, a report showed Thursday.

South Korea's combined household financial credit and nonprofit organizations accounted for 95.6 percent of the country's GDP in 2016, up 4.6 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the report by Rep. Kim Du-kwan submitted to parliament. The country GDP was tallied at $1.64 trillion last year.

(Yonhap)

The debt-to-GDP ratio has been on a steep rise since the government eased bank loan regulations to boost the local housing market in 2014. It topped the 90 percent line in 2015 for the first time.

South Korea's household debt topped 1,400 trillion won ($1.24 trillion) as of June, posing a potential threat to Asia's fourth-largest economy. (Yonhap)