Public debt plunges again in November after IMF repayment

Public debt plunges again in November, for the third month in a row, after the Government made a 2.8 billion euros’ reimbursement to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). By the end of that month, Portugal’s public indebtedness stood at 242.8 billion euros, the lowest amount since January of 2017. It already stands below the Executive’s goals.

Data published this Tuesday by the Bank of Portugal shows that public debt according to the Maastricht shrunk 2.4 billion euros in comparison to October. “This change chiefly reflects the early repayment of IMF loans“, according to a statistical press release disclosed this Tuesday morning.

This means that after the 3.9 billion euros’ plunge in October, the amount of public indebtedness deflated substantially once again in the second-to-last month of last year. And, since its record in August above 250 billion, debt already decreased 7.2 billion euros in around three months, standing now pretty much at the same level as in the beginning of 2017.

In absolute terms, the goal set by the Government points to a public debt of around 242.9 billion euros, so the amount achieved in November already meets that goal. In the 2018 State Budget, the Government inscribed a 126.2% of GDP goal for the public debt of 2017.

The only reason public debt did not take a sharper plunge was because the Portuguese Treasury went to the market to get more financing. In November, IGCP (Portuguese Debt Management Agency) went to the market three times to earn money from investors: it was able to get 1.5 billion euros in Treasury bills, 1.25 billion in Treasury bonds and another 1.3 billion euros in OTRV (sovereign bonds sold to retail investors).

The same press release from the Bank of Portugal reveals that public debt net of general government deposits registered a softer decrease, of 600 million euros in comparison to October, totaling 222.2 billion euros.