Malta enjoyed the second biggest drop in its national debt among EU member states between the second and third quarters of last year, the government said yesterday.

It said that according to the latest Eurostat figures, Malta’s debt was down by 2.7 per cent of the GDP. Nine EU countries managed to reduce their debts but on average, debt in the EU was up by 1.3 per cent.

Malta’s debt level is now below Germany’s and close to that of The Netherlands.

The government said this data belied Opposition claims that the debt had ‘exploded’ under this administration. It was actually in the first quarter of 2013, under the former government, that the debt rose by 3.6 per cent of GDP, the steepest rise for Malta registered.

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