Tables
Tables
Methodological Notes
1. This release presents Government debt in line with the methodology defined in the Maastricht Treaty (Article 104). The basic conceptual reference framework for this exercise is the ESA 2010 Manual on Government Deficit and Debt (2019 edition) which is in turn based on the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010). This compliance with the reference framework allows for the international comparability of the data.
2. General Government Sector (S.13 sector according to the ESA 2010 definitions) is made up of the Central Government Sector (S.1311) and the Local Government Sector (S.1313). The Central Government Sector includes the Budgetary Central Government, made up of Government Ministries and Departments and the Extra Budgetary Units (EBUs).
3. Figures in the tables presented may not add up due to rounding.
4. Data may be subject to revision.
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Structure of General Government Debt: 2023
- The General Government debt for 2023 amounted to €9,767.8 million or 50.4 per cent of GDP.
- The biggest share of debt is held by the Financial Corporations (54.6 per cent), followed by the Rest of World (21.8 per cent) and Households and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) (21.6 per cent).
- The preferred debt instrument is ‘debt securities’ with 85.7 per cent.
- The market value of the General Government debt is estimated at €9,407.7 million.
- In 2023, the apparent cost of debt was 2.3 per cent and the average remaining maturity of the debt was eight years and one month.
Structure of General Government Debt: 2023
Structure of General Government Debt: 2023
In 2023, the Financial Corporations sector held the biggest share of Government’s debt with 54.6 per cent, followed by the Rest of World with 21.8 per cent. The share of Households and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) was 21.6 per cent, an increase of 2.6 percentage points over the debt held in 2020. The Non-Financial Corporations sector held 2.0 per cent of the debt. Between 2020 and 2023, the Rest of the World sector experienced the highest growth in the holding of Government’s debt, an increase of 3.7 percentage points. Conversely, the Financial Corporations’ holdings decreased by 6.1 percentage points (Table 1).
Chart 1. General Government Debt
Debt securities, which include Malta Government Stocks and Treasury Bills, are by far the preferred debt instrument for General Government, with €8,371.4 million, or 85.7 per cent, of the total debt in 2023. Other debt instruments are Loans and Currency, with 9.6 per cent and 4.7 per cent, respectively. The largest increase was recorded under Debt Securities, with an increase in Malta Government Stocks of €952.2 million, whereas the largest drop was observed in Treasury bills of €243.7 million (Table 2).
Chart 2. Debt holders by institutional sector (%)
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Chart 3. Debt by financial instrument (%)
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Chart 4. Nominal debt compared to market debt
€ millions
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Almost all the debt owed by the General Government Sector is in national currency. The stock of debt in foreign currencies has decreased considerably over the years (Table 3).
The apparent cost of debt, which is the interest rate applicable to the whole nominal debt, was 2.3 per cent in 2023, compared to 1.9 per cent in 2022. This measure of debt cost reflects the interest rates in effect at the time of issuance (Table 4).
The market value of the total General Government debt in 2023 is estimated at €9,407.7 million, compared to the nominal value of €9,767.8 million, reflecting a decrease in the market value attributable to the impact of inflation and an increase in interest rates (Table 5).
For the year under review, the time structure of the debt by initial maturity shows that €2,845.0 million, or 29.1 per cent, was issued with a maturity of 15 to 30 years. This was followed by debt issued for one to five years (20.8 per cent), seven to 10 years (16.7 per cent), 10 to 15 years (11.2 per cent), five to seven years (11.2 per cent), less than one year (7.0 per cent) and more than 30 years (3.9 per cent) (Table 6).
The average remaining maturity of total debt for 2023 was eight years one month, three months shorter than in 2022. In 2023, the biggest share of debt by remaining maturity was in the 1-5 year category with €3,149.7 million, followed by the 7-10 year category (€1,847.4 million) and the 15-30 year category (€1,481.4 million) (Table 7).
Chart 5. Debt by initial and remaining maturity
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Government guarantees on borrowing amounted to €1,142.2 million in 2023, or 5.9 per cent of GDP, a decrease of €17.9 million over 2022. The majority of Government guarantees are issued towards the Non-Financial Corporations sector, which accounts for 66.2 per cent of the total guarantees. The Financial Corporations, Rest of the World and NPISH sectors benefitted from 29.8, 3.4 and 0.6 per cent of Government guarantees, respectively. The Government guarantees are contingent liabilities, contingent on the actual call of the guarantee, and therefore these do not form part of General Government debt (Table 8).
The General Government debt data reported in this release are consistent with the April 2024 EDP notification as published in news release 070/2024 dated 22 April.
Chart 6. Government Guarantees beneficiaries by Institutional Sector
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