General govt debt grows by €1.3b in Q2

General government EDP debt, i.e. consolidated gross debt at nominal prices amounted to EUR 167.1 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2021 and grew by EUR 1.3 billion during the quarter, according to Statistics Finland.

Relative to GDP, general government debt stood at 69.4 per cent. Correspondingly, general government debt has grown by EUR 3.2 billion compared with the respective period of the year before.

During the second quarter, central government debt grew by EUR 1.2 billion and was EUR 140.1 billion at the end of the quarter.

The stock of long-term bonds fell by EUR 0.6 billion and the amount of short-term debt instruments with a maturity of under one year grew by EUR 1.8 billion. The stock of long-term loans went up by EUR 0.4 billion and the stock of short-term loans fell by EUR 0.4 billion.

The local government sector’s debt grew by EUR 0.1 billion and stood at EUR 26.0 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2021.

The loan stock fell by EUR 0.1 billion but the amount of debt instruments grew by EUR 0.2 billion. Social security funds' debt grew by EUR 0.1 billion and totalled EUR 2.5 billion at the end of the quarter. Of these, the debt of employment pension schemes remained almost on level with the previous quarter. The debt of other social security funds grew by EUR 0.1 billion due to the growth in the amount of short-term debt instruments.

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.