General government debt at €5,620.7 million by end 2015

In 2015, the financial corporations sector held the biggest share of debt with 62.3%, followed by Households and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) with 27.6%. According to NSO, the share of non-residents was 8.8%, up from 8.4% in 2014 and the non-financial corporations sector held 1.3% 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 €5,176.0 million or 92.1% of the total debt in 2015. Other debt instruments are the ‘loans’ and ‘currency’ with 6.7% and 1.2% respectively.

According to the data, almost all the debt owed by the General Government Sector is in national currency, with the stock of debt in foreign currencies decreasing and amounting to €0.1 million in 2015.

The apparent cost of debt, which is the interest rate applicable to the whole nominal debt, was 4.1 per cent in 2015 compared to 4.3 per cent in 2014, the NSO adds.

Figures show that for 2015, the market value of the total General Government debt is estimated at €6,711.5 million compared to the nominal value of €5,620.7 million. Reflecting the positive performance of the debt securities in the local financial market, the market debt increased by €367.1 million over 2014, as compared to an increase of €198.8 million in nominal debt.

Last year, the time structure of the debt by initial maturity shows that €2,784.4 million, or 49.5 per cent, was issued with a maturity of 15 to 30 years. This was followed by debt issued for 10 to 15 years (14.7 per cent), 5 to 7 years (13.5 per cent) and 1 to 5 years (11.3 per cent). The average remaining maturity of total debt for 2015 decreased to eight years eight months from eight years nine months in 2014. Compared with 2012 which had an average remaining maturity of seven years three months, the debt is being issued on a longer term basis. The biggest share of debt by remaining maturity in 2015 was in the 1 to 5-year category with €1,705.1 million, followed by the 10 to 15-year (€1,106.9 million) and the 15 to 30-year (€1,070.9 million) categories.

Data shows that government guarantees on borrowing amounted to €1,404.2 million in 2015, an increase of €68.9 million over 2014. The majority of Government guarantees are issued towards the Non-Financial Corporations sector, which accounts for 78.2 per cent of the total guarantees.

The General Government debt data reported in this release are consistent with the April 2016 EDP notification as published in news release 065/2016 dated 21 April.