Government debt increases by €144.4 million at end 2016 - NSO

At the end of 2016, the General Government debt increased by €144.4 million, amounting to €5,766.5 million, or 58.3% of GDP, the National Statistics Office said yesterday.

In 2016, the Financial Corporations sector held the biggest share of debt with 61.8%, followed by Households and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) with 26.6%. The share of non-residents was 10.5%, up from 8.8% in 2015. The Non-Financial Corporations sector held 1.1% of the debt.

The ‘debt securities’, which includes the Malta Government Stocks and Treasury Bills, is by far the preferred debt instrument for General Government, with €5,379.3 million or 93.3% of the total debt in 2016. Other debt instruments are the ‘loans’ and ‘currency’ with 5.5% and 1.3% respectively.

Almost all the debt owed by the General Government Sector is in national currency. The stock of debt in foreign currencies has decreased and in 2016 it amounted to €0.1 million. The apparent cost of debt, which is the interest rate applicable to the whole nominal debt, was 3.8% in 2016 compared to 4.1% in 2015.

For 2016 the market value of the total General Government debt is estimated at €6,953.4 million compared to the nominal value of €5,766.5 million. Reflecting the positive performance of the debt securities in the local financial market, the market debt increased by €242.1 million over 2016, as compared to an increase of €144.4 million in nominal debt.

Last year, the time structure of the debt by initial maturity shows that €3,283.2 million, or 56.9%, was issued with a maturity of 15 to 30 years. This was followed by debt issued for 5 to 7 years (14.2%), 10 to 15 years (10.6%) and 1 to 5 years (7.4%). The average remaining maturity of total debt for 2016 increased to nine years eight months from eight years eight months in 2015. Compared to 2013 which had an average remaining maturity of seven years eleven months, the debt is being issued on a longer term basis. The biggest share of debt by remaining maturity in 2016 was in the 1 to 5-year category with €1,791.2 million, followed by the 15 to 30-year (€1,402.6 million) and the 10 to 15-year (€1,252.4 million) categories.

Government guarantees on borrowing amounted to €1,399.3 million in 2016, a decrease of €4.9 million over 2015. The majority of Government guarantees are issued towards the Non-Financial Corporations sector, which accounts for 78.8% of the total guarantees.

The General Government debt data reported in this release are consistent with the April 2017 EDP notification as published in news release dated 24 April.