Italy Raises Budget Deficit, Debt Due to Bank Bailout

  By Giovanni Legorano 
 

ROME--Italy upwardly revised its 2017 budget deficit and its national debt on Wednesday after the country included costs from last year related to the rescue of one bank and the liquidation of another two.

According to the national statistics agency ISTAT, the country's deficit for last year has been revised to 2.3% of gross domestic product, compared with the 1.9% the agency announced at the beginning of March.

The country's debt--one of the highest in the eurozone--was revised up to 131.8%, from 131.5% of gross domestic product.

Last year, the Italian government drove a major clean-up of the country's struggling banking sector by bailing out Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA (BMPS.MI) and by liquidating two smaller lenders from the Veneto region.

The agency said it incorporated recommendations from Eurostat, which estimated that the cost of these operations increased by a total of 6.3 billion euros ($7.4 billion). Of that figure EUR1.6 billion was due to the bailout of Monte dei Paschi.

ISTAT also said the budget deficit for the fourth quarter of last year stood at 1.6% of GDP, compared with 1.9% for the same quarter of 2016.

Write to Giovanni Legorano at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 04, 2018 08:45 ET (12:45 GMT)

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