Malta registers 436.6-mln-euro government surplus in 2017

VALLETTA, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Malta registered a general government surplus of 436.6 million euros (532.9 million U.S. dollars) last year, half of which came from the sale of citizenship, according figures released by the country's National Statistics Office on Monday.

The surplus is the equivalent of 3.9 percent of GDP, which is the highest amongst the 28 European Union member states.

The numbers showed that around half of the surplus, 199.7 million euros, came from the National Development and Social Fund, which, in turn, receives 70 percent of the proceeds of the controversial Individual Investor Program -- Malta's sale of passports to wealthy foreign investors.

The total was also boosted by the central government's surplus of 182.7 million euros.

Malta's general government debt stands at 5.6 billion euros, or 50.8 percent of GDP, which represents a significant drop of the country's debt, which was 63.8 percent of GDP in 2014.

For the past two years, Malta has turned its deficit into a surplus. The general government surplus in 2016 stood at 101 million euros. Enditem