This year's edition of International Debt Statistics, successor to Global Development Finance and World Debt Tables, and the fourth in the series, is designed to respond to user demand for timely, comprehensive data on trends in external debt in low- and middle-income countries. It also provides summary information on the external debt of high-income countries and public (domestic and external) debt for a select
group of countries.

International Debt Statistics 2017 provides a summary overview and a select set of indicators, while an expanded dataset is available online (datatopics.worldbank.org/debt/ids). As in previous years, IDS provides statistical tables showing the external debt of developing countries that report public and publicly guaranteed external debt to the World Bank's Debtor Reporting System (DRS). By providing comprehensive and timely data that reflects the latest additions and revisions, and by expanding the scope of the data available online, this publication aims to serve the needs of users and to reach a wider audience. Improvements in data dissemination are matched with ongoing efforts to improve the quality and timeliness of data collection. In partnership with the major providers of debt data management systems to low- and middle-income countries, the Commonwealth Secretariat (COMSEC) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Bank is working toward an established standard code and a set of system links that will enable countries to provide their DRS reports electronically in a seamless and automated data exchange process.