This is the first quarterly increase since the first quarter of 2021 and follows Fernando Medina’s “special operation” to bring the debt below 100%.
The burden of public debt on the economy worsened in the first quarter of the year. After falling to 99.1% last year, the debt ratio to gross domestic product (GDP) grew to 100.5% at the end of March, according to data released this Thursday by the Bank of Portugal.
This is the first quarterly increase since the first quarter of 2021 and follows the Fernando Medina’s “special operation” to leave the debt below 100%, which Expresso reported in January. This plan included a series of early repurchases of public debt on the market, as well as, according to the weekly, acceleration of payments to suppliers of public companies.
In March 2024, public debt, from Maastricht’s perspective, increased by 2.4 billion euros, to 270.9 billion euros. “This increase reflected the increase of 1.7 billion euros in debt securities (Treasury bills and bonds) and the increase of 0.8 billion euros in loans, mainly short-term”, explains the supervisor’s report .
Public administration deposits totaled 13.8 billion euros, which corresponds to a reduction of 800 million euros compared to February. Deducted from these deposits, public debt increased by 3.2 billion euros, to 257.1 billion euros.
In view of this evolution, “in the first quarter of the year, public debt totaled 100.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), which represents an increase of 1.4 percentage points compared to the end of the previous year“, he indicates. Compared to the same period last year, there is still a drop of 11.8 percentage points.
(News updated at 11:15)
