HELSINKI: General government EDP debt grew by EUR 2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2016 and stood at EUR 133.8 billion at the end of the quarter. Compared with the respective period of the year before, general government debt has increased by a total of EUR 9.4 billion, according to the data derived from Statistics Finland’s statistics on general government debt by quarter.
The central government debt grew by EUR 2.7 billion, and stood at EUR 116.2 billion at the end of the quarter. The central government debt grew in the first quarter mainly because the stock of bonds issued by central government increased by EUR 2.9 billion.
In addition, the stock of both short and long-term loans grew by EUR 0.4 billion, the statistics show. Over the same period, the stock of deposits and short-term debt securities decreased altogether by EUR 0.5 billion. Local government debt increased by EUR 0.2 billion and totalled EUR 18.7 billion at the end of the quarter. The debt of other social security funds diminished by EUR 0.1 billion during the quarter.
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.
The consolidated general government gross debt is derived by deducting debts between units recorded under general government from unconsolidated gross debt. For this reason, the general government debt is smaller than the combined debts of its sub-sectors. The valuation principle for both debt concepts is the nominal value, where the effect of interest-rate contracts and currency swaps is taken into account.
