José Sena Goulão / Lusa
The Minister of State and Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento
Portugal closed 2024 with a budget surplus of 0.7% of GDP. For its turn, public debt descended to 94.9% of GDP and reached the lowest value since 2009.
The ratio of public debt compared to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood in 94,9% em 2024.
And the lower value since 2009 (87.6%) and below the state budget forecast (OE), 95.9%.
According to the results reported in the first notification of the procedure of excessive deficits and released this Wednesday by Banco de Portugal (BDP), the weight of public debt in GDP was reduced by 2.8 percentage points compared to 2023.
The data is also below the previous forecast of the BDP, which in February was this ratio by 97.7% in December last year.
Budget surplus of 0.7% of GDP
Also this Wednesday, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) revealed that Portugal closed 2024 with a budget surplus of 0.7% of GDPin national accounting, above 0.4% estimated by the government.
“The positive balance of the Public Administration Sector (AP), in a percentage of GDP, was set at 0.7% in the year finished in the 4th quarter of 2024, equal to that observed in the previous quarter (1.2% in 2023),” reads in quarterly national accounts by institutional sector.
This evolution was due to an increase in expense (0.9%) identical to increase in revenue (0.9%). In the state fit, it should be noted that Current revenue rose 1.3%which “reflects increases from all its components, except for income and heritage taxes (-2.2%)”, due to the application of new IRS retention tables at source.
