HELSINKI: General government EDP debt, or consolidated debt at nominal prices, decreased by EUR 4.8 billion and stood at EUR 130.3 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2016, according to Statistics Finland’s statistics. Central government debt diminished by EUR 4.4 billion, and stood at EUR 111.8 billion at the end of the quarter.
The decrease in central government debt in the second quarter was mainly due to the amortisation of bonds issued by central government. The stock of short-term debt securities diminished by EUR 0.6 billion and the stock of short-term loans by EUR 0.3 billion. The stock of long-term loans remained on level with the previous quarter as per the statistics on general government debt by quarter.
Local government debt decreased by EUR 0.2 billion and totalled EUR 17.9 billion at the end of the quarter. The debt of social security funds also diminished by EUR 0.5 billion during the quarter. From the beginning of 2016, specified information has been available on cash collateral related to employment pension schemes’ derivative contracts and securities lending. These items were previously included in other accounts payable. Now cash collateral is transferred to short-term loans. At this point, the time series revisions concern the years 2012 to 2016. The time series may change more later on.
General government EDP debt describes general government’s debt to other sectors of the national economy and to the rest of the world, and its development is influenced by changes in unconsolidated debt and internal general government debts. Consolidated general government gross debt is derived by deducting debts between units recorded under general government from unconsolidated gross debt. For the reason, general government debt is smaller than the combined debts of its subsectors. The EDP debt of general government differs conceptionally to some extent in the case of central government, from the central government debt published by the State Treasury.
