The Ministry for Finance is pleased to note that Government has succeeded once again in reducing the deficit and debt ratios in 2015.

 

PRESS RELEASE BY THE MINISTRY FOR FINANCE

Indeed, official figures published by Eurostat show that the general Government deficit as a percentage of GDP has been reduced to 1.5 per cent in 2015 which is marginally better than the target set in the Budget.

 

It may be recalled that the deficit stood at 3.5 per cent in 2012 which was above the Maastricht deficit criteria of 3 per cent and hence, forced the European Commission to put Malta under the excessive deficit procedure.

The data shows that over the last three years the Government managed to reduce the value of the deficit by almost half as the deficit fell to €129 million in 2015, from €256 million in 2012.

 

 

The gradual but consistent reduction in the deficit positively impacted the debt ratio which fell by 3.2 percentage points to 63.9 per cent in 2015, from 67.1 per cent in 2014.

Minister for Finance Prof. Edward Scicluna remarks: “The fiscal results for last year show that our fiscal stance remains consistent with Government policy of sound economic and fiscal governance.”

 

               

Thursday 21st April 2016