With 110.9% of the country’s GDP, Cyprus had the fourth highest government debt to GDP ratio in the EU in the third quarter of 2018, a Eurostat study found.
The highest ratios of government debt to GDP at the end of the third quarter of 2018 were recorded in Greece (182.2 %), Italy (133.0%), Portugal (125.0%), Cyprus (110.9%) and Belgium (105.4%), and the lowest in Estonia (8.0%), Luxembourg (21.7%) and Bulgaria (23.1%).
According to Eurostat, Cyprus had the highest increase (+6.9%) in government debt to GDP compared with the second quarter of 2018.
Greece had the second highest increase with 4.8%.
The largest decreases were recorded in Malta (-3.1%), Slovenia and Croatia (both -1.6%), Hungary and Czechia (both -1.4%), the Netherlands (-1.1%) and Poland (-1.0%).
Things look worse for Cyprus when compared with the third quarter of 2017, as the country again recorded the highest increase (+9.7%), followed by Greece (+7.4%), the United Kingdom (+0.4%) and Slovakia (+0.1%).
At the end of the third quarter of 2018, the government debt to GDP ratio in the euro area (EA19) stood at 86.1%, compared with 86.3% at the end of the second quarter of 2018. In the EU28, the ratio decreased from 81.0% to 80.8%. Compared with the third quarter of 2017, the government debt to GDP ratio fell in both the euro area (from 88.2% to 86.1%) and the EU28 (from 82.5% to 80.8%).
Loans made up 15.7% and 13.8% respectively and currency and deposits represented 3.1% of euro area and 4.2% of EU28 government debt.
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