ROME, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Italy's public debt set a record high of 2.69 trillion euros (3.17 trillion U.S. dollars) in June this year, an increase of 9.2 billion euros (10.8 billion U.S. dollars) compared to the previous month, the central bank said on Monday.
The Bank of Italy attributed the increase to new government debt, which totaled 9.3 billion euros (10.9 billion U.S. dollars). However, local government debt actually dropped slightly over the last month, while the debtload of public pension systems remained unchanged.
The Bank of Italy, the country's largest creditor, saw its own share of the country's public debt increased to 23.0 percent, compared to 22.7 percent in the previous month.
The government tax revenue totaled 32.6 billion euros (38.3 billion U.S. dollars) in June, a 20 percent increase compared to the same month in 2020.
Italy's public debt, when taken as a percentage of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), was already among the highest in the world before the pandemic. It has since mushroomed, sparked by stimulus and health programs, and lower tax revenue.
According to estimates from the data firm Statista, Italy's public debt will peak at 155.7 percent of the country's GDP this year, before dropping to 152.9 percent in 2022, as tax revenue increases and the economy recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, the last full year before the start of the pandemic, public debt in Italy accounted for 134.6 percent of the country's GDP. Enditem
