Italy debt-GDP ratio falls 0.5 points

Bank of Italy said the country’s public debt as a proportion of gross domestic product, fell by around half of a percentage point last year, broadly in line with the government’s target.

Fabio Panetta, a member of the central bank’s executive board, made the estimate in a speech in London, reports Reuters.

In 2016 Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 132.0 per cent, the highest in the euro zone after Greece‘s.

Their Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s government targeted it to fall to 131.6 per cent last year. The Bank of Italy will issue the official 2017 data in April.