The government debt amounted to €5,620.7 million, or 63.9 per cent of GDP at the end of last year.

Data issued by the National Statistics office shows that the growth rate in the debt was consistent with the previous year, but debt servicing costs declined.

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In 2015, the Financial Corporations sector held the biggest share of debt with 62.3 per cent, followed by Households and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) with 27.6 per cent. The share of non-residents was 8.8 per cent, up from 8.4 per cent in 2014. The Non-Financial Corporations sector held 1.3 per cent of the debt.

‘Debt securities’, which includes the Malta Government Stocks and Treasury Bills, was by far the preferred debt instrument for General Government, with €5,176.0 million or 92.1 per cent of the total debt in 2015. Other debt instruments are the ‘loans’ and ‘currency’ with 6.7 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively (Table 2).

Almost all the debt owed by the General Government Sector was in euro. The stock of debt in foreign currencies decreased, and  amounted to €0.1 million.

The apparent cost of debt, which is the interest rate applicable to the whole nominal debt, was 4.1 per cent in 2015 compared to 4.3 per cent in 2014.

For 2015, the market value of the total General Government debt was estimated at €6,711.5 million compared to the nominal value of €5,620.7 million.

Reflecting the positive performance of the debt securities in the local financial market, the market debt increased by €367.1 million over 2014, as compared to an increase of €198.8 million in nominal debt.

Last year, the time structure of the debt by initial maturity shows that €2,784.4 million, or 49.5 per cent, was issued with a maturity of 15 to 30 years. This was followed by debt issued for 10 to 15 years (14.7 per cent), 5 to 7 years (13.5 per cent) and 1 to 5 years (11.3 per cent).

The average remaining maturity of total debt for 2015 decreased to eight years eight months from eight years nine months in 2014. Compared with 2012 which had an average remaining maturity of seven years three months, the debt is being issued on a longer term basis. The biggest share of debt by remaining maturity in 2015 was in the 1 to 5-year category with €1,705.1 million, followed by the 10 to 15-year (€1,106.9 million) and the 15 to 30-year (€1,070.9 million) categories.

Government guarantees on borrowing amounted to €1,404.2 million in 2015, an increase of €68.9 million over 2014. The majority of Government guarantees were issued towards the Non-Financial Corporations sector, which accounts for 78.2 per cent of the total guarantees.