Portugal news - Portugal’s public debt falls by 2.1 billion euros in July 2024.
Portugal’s public debt, from the Maastricht perspective, decreased by 2.1 billion euros to 275.9 billion euros in July 2024. This decrease mainly reflected the reduction in debt securities (-2.0 billion euros), mainly short-term.
Portugal’s general government deposit assets totaled 16.8 billion euros, an increase of 2.8 billion euros compared to June. Excluding these deposits, public debt fell by 4.9 billion euros to 259.2 billion euros.
Public debt corresponds to the financial liabilities of the general government sector and is one of the most relevant macroeconomic indicators used to assess a country’s financial health. While there are several ways of measuring public debt, in Portugal and in other European Union (EU) countries, a harmonized definition is used, which is commonly referred to as the “Maastricht debt”.