Greece debt/GDP ratio at 176.2 pct in Q1

The EU executive's statistics service, in a report released here, said that the Greek debt fell by 2.9 percentage points compared with the fourth quarter of 2016, recording the biggest decline among EU member-states. Compared with the first quarter of 2016, the debt/GDP ratio fell by 0.3 percentage points. Eurostat said that 140.6 pct of the Greek debt was loans and 35.6 pct were other securities. In total numbers, the Greek debt fell to 310.6 billion euros in the first quarter from 314.8 billion euros in the fourth quarter of 2016.

In the Eurozone, the government debt to GDP ratio stood at 89.5 pct in the first quarter, compared with 89.2 pct at the end of the fourth quarter of 2016. In the EU28, the ratio also increased from 83.6 pct to 84.1 pct. Compared with the first quarter of 2016, the government debt to GDP ratio fell in both the euro area (from 91.2 pct to 89.5 pct) and the EU28 (from 84.3 pct to 84.1 pct). At the end of the first quarter of 2017, debt securities accounted for 80.1 pct of euro area and for 81.3 pct of EU28 general government debt. Loans made up 16.9 pct and 14.7 pct respectively and currency and deposits represented 3.0 pct of euro area and 4.0 pct of EU28 government debt. The share of IGL (intergovernmental lending) in GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2017 amounted to 2.1 pct in the euro area and to 1.6 pct in the EU28.

The highest ratios of government debt to GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2017 were recorded in Greece (176.2 pct), Italy (134.7 pct) and Portugal (130.5 pct), and the lowest in Estonia (9.2 pct), Luxembourg (23.0 pct) and Bulgaria (28.6 pct).

Compared with the fourth quarter of 2016, twelve Member States registered an increase in their debt to GDP ratio at the end of the first quarter of 2017, and fifteen a decrease.