Portugal’s indebtedness reaches maximum of 723.6 billion euros

  • ECO News
  • 22 June 2017

Public indebtedness and indebtedness from companies and families increased for the fourth consecutive month. Public administration made the strongest contribution.

The Portuguese economy’s indebtedness — the same is to say, the indebtedness of public administrations, families and companies, excluding banks — reached a record high in April: 723.6 billion euros, according to Bank of Portugal.

Since January 2017, the indebtedness of the Portuguese economy has been rising. In December 2016, Portugal owed 715.2 billion euros, but the increases have been consecutive to this new record of 723.6 billions. However, we should regard the indebtedness to GDP variation: in the first quarter of 2017, the ratio was 385.3% of GDP, slightly below the December 2016 percentage (386.7%).

In April, the increase was explained mainly by the increase in public administrations indebtedness: public indebtedness increased 4.779 million euros in only one month. Private companies are also more indebted, but with a smaller upturn: 219 million euros.

As for families, they kept their indebtedness level almost unchanged (decreased by ten million euros), although the structure of that indebtedness suffered a slight change, since housing indebtedness decreased to 173 million euros.

All in all, the public sector owes 315.9 billion euros, while the private sector owes 407.7 billion euros.