News from Berlin

German Public Debt Decreased by 1.4 per cent

March 27th, 2014
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News from Berlin - German public debt decreased by 28 billion euros in 2013. According to the Federal Statistics Office, the debt of the state, Bundesländer (provinces) and municipalities amounted to €2,043 billion on December 31st 2013. This is a decrease of 1.4 per cent compared to the debt incurred at the end of 2012.

Statisticians from the Federal Statistics Office say that one of the principal reasons is that both so-called bad banks FMS Wertmanagement and Erste Abwicklungsanstant (EAA) have improved their practices. These banks contain the problematic securities of the nationalised real estate bank Hypo Real Estate and West LB. “These banks have continued to reduce their portfolio and thus managed to further reduce both their balance sheet total as well as their debt”, representatives of the Federal Statistics Office have claimed.

The state is responsible for the largest part of public debt. On December 31st, it was approximately €1,281 billion in overdraft. The provinces’ debt amounted to €629 billion and the municipalities owed barely €134 billion.

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