UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent a letter to all 193 member states to warn them of the liquidity crisis of the world body, a UN spokesperson said Friday.

Sent on Thursday, the letter's "key point is to underscore the gravity of the current financial situation that the United Nations faces," said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN chief.

Guterres has repeatedly made clear the problem of non-payment of dues by member states and the related problem of the United Nations being forced to repay member states for budget money that it does not spend, said the spokesperson. "And so those two factors have put us on an unsustainable trajectory."

He noted that Guterres already warned in November 2025 that returning nearly 300 million U.S. dollars in credits would trigger a liquidity crisis for the UN budget this year. "And now, of course, we are facing that crisis now."

Although more than 150 member states paid their dues last year, UN ended 2025 with a record 1.56 billion dollars in outstanding dues, which is more than double that of the previous year, Haq said.

Unless either the payments come in, or the United Nations is not compelled to return the money that it was not able to spend because it did not receive the dues -- unless one of those two things happens, the world body faces a real danger of running out of money, said the spokesperson. ■