Cyprus government debt stands 74.6% of GDP

Cyprus’s government debt to GDP ratio stood at 74.6% or 13.228 billion euro in the first quarter of 2012, according to data on the course of debt in EU countries, released on Monday by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

According to the EU data, the highest increases in the ratio in first quarter of 2012 compared with the corresponding period of 2011 were recorded in Portugal with 17.2 percentage points of GDP followed by Cyprus with 11 pp and Ireland with 8.2 pp.

In Greece, the "haircut" on Greek bonds held by private investors led to a reduction in total debt by 20 pp of GDP over the same period, while the reduction reached 33 pp on a quarterly basis, namely the first quarter of 2012 compared to fourth quarter of 2011.

The highest ratios of government debt to GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2012 were recorded in Greece (132.4%), Italy (123.3%), Portugal (111.7%) and Ireland (108.5%), and the lowest in Estonia (6.6%), Bulgaria (16.7%) and Luxembourg (20.9%).

Cyprus` dept, despite the significant increase recorded, is still lower than the Eurozone average (88.2% of GDP) as well as the EU27 average (83.4% of GDP).