Portfolio investment assets held abroad by entities in Malta amounted to €20.04 billion as at the end of December last year according to provisional estimates published by the National Statistics Office.

The NSO said the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS) is an annual exercise carried out by countries to measure the market value of total security assets held abroad by resident entities.

These data are further broken down by country where the financial assets are invested.

Provisional figures for total securities as at the end of 2012 stood at €20.04 billion, an increase of €2,870.6 million from the position at the end of 2011.

The main increase, amounting to €2,820.9 million, was registered in long-term debt securities, reaching €19,120.7 million at the end of the period under review.

Long-term debt securities continued to form the bulk of the portfolio investment, accounting for 95.4 per cent of total securities at the end of 2012.

The stock position of equity securities increased by €51.4 million from that prevailing a year earlier, totalling €919.1 million at the end of December.

The value of the stock position of the short-term securities fell by €1.9 million during 2012, to €0.1 million.

With securities amounting to €9,901 million, Turkey accounted for 49.4 per cent of total securities invested abroad.

The United Kingdom held 8.5 per cent of total securities invested abroad, followed by Ireland (6.4 per cent), France (5.4 per cent), and the Netherlands (4.7 per cent).