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Portugal's public debt drops to 2.5 pct of GDP in Q3

Xinhua, December 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Portugal's public debt dropped to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) at 3.40 billion euros (3.55 billion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months of the year, the National Institute of Statistics said Friday.

Public expenditure dropped by 1.1 percent while revenue grew 0.8 percent, it said.

"The performance of government accounts reinforces the government's commitment to the goals set," the Ministry of Finance said in an official note sent to media Friday.

Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa had said earlier this week that he was confident the deficit would be "comfortably" below the target of 2.5 percent of GDP agreed with Brussels.

The result is good news for the government which had promised to cut debt while also rolling back austerity.

Portugal needed a 78-billion-euro bailout in 2011 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, but the bailout led to harsh spending cuts and tax hikes in the country. Endit