Portfolio investment assets held abroad by entities resident in Malta amounted to €10.2 billion as at the end of December 2008, according to provisonal estimates published by the National Statistics Office.

The Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS) is an annual exercise carried out by a number of countries under the patronage of the International Monetary Fund.

This exercise measures the market value of total security assets held abroad by entities resident in a particular country. This data, shown by instrument, is further broken down by country where the assets are invested.

Provisional figures for total securities as at the end of 2008 amounted to €10,189.6 million, a decrease of €506.2 million from the position prevailing at the end of 2007.

The main drop, amounting to €425.8 million, was registered in long-term debt securities, reaching a level of €9,371.4 million at the end of the year under review.

The stock position of equity securities decreased by €89.1 million from that prevailing a year earlier, amounting to €809.2 million. On the other hand, short-term securities increased over the position shown at the end of 2007, to reach an amount of €9.2 million.

The main country where securities were invested at the end of December 2008 remained Turkey, as was the case in the preceding years, with total securities amounting to €3,049.3 million, making up 29.9 per cent of total securities.

Other notable destinations for security assets were Germany, accounting for 9.7 per cent of the total, followed by the United Kingdom (7.4 per cent), Italy (5.9 per cent) and the United States (5.1 per cent).