The decline only partially reverses the strong increase seen in January, one month after a debt burden of less than 100% of GDP was found in the national debt.
After interrupting the downward trend seen over several months in January, the nominal value of public debt fell again in February, the Bank of Portugal (BdP) said this Monday.
From the perspective of Maastricht, which counts for monitoring the public debt ratio in budgetary rules, public administration debt decreased by 2.2 billion euros in Februaryreaching a level of 268.5 billion euros.
The decline only partially reverses the strong increase seen in January, one month after a debt burden of less than 100% of GDP was found in the national debt. In the first month of this year, public debt rose by 7.6 billion euros, reaching approximately 270.7 billion euros.
According to the BdP note, the drop in debt that occurred in February from the perspective of Maastricht mainly reflects the reduction in debt securities (minus two billion euros), mainly long-term. Deposit liabilities registered a monthly decrease of 200 million euros.
Already In the set of debt values excluded from the impact of public administration deposits, the evolution of February is still upward. The nominal value of debt recorded rises by 1.5 billion eurosto 253.9 billion euros.
Considering this indicator, without the impact of public administration deposits, nominal debt is now above the December value and at the highest level since August last year.
