Portugal’s national debt rose to €217.31 billion in January 2014, according to depressing data from the Bank of Portugal. This is the highest debt figure ever officially registered since these things started to be recorded.
At the end of December 2013 the national debt had reached €213.39 billion which represented 129% of Portugal’s Gross Domestic Product. By the end of January this year, despite some promising economic data, this actually had risen by nearly €4 billion to the €217.31 billion figure.
In recent years the ratio of public debt as a percentage of GDP has shown a worrying upward curve, increasing from 108.3% in 2011 to 124.1% in 2012 and 129% in 2013.
The Government's target for public debt last year was 127.8% of GDP and for this year it is 126.7% of GDP, perhaps now a hoplessly optimistic guess.
The data released by the Bank of Portugal will of course be poured over by international financiers upon whom much of Portugal’s fiscal future depends. Will foreign funds want to buy Portuguese bonds when its debt ration is so high?
Despite assurances by government ministers of record exports and a boom in company registrations, headline figures show a less rosy state of affairs with record numbers of unemployed, a third of the country’s households living on €10,000 or less and the national debt at its highest level ever recorded. So many sacrifices have been screwed out of the population but seemingly with little tangible result.
