Greece’s debt in the third quarter of 208 reached 182.2 percent of its GDP, or 334.98 billion euros in absolute terms, according to statistics released this week by Eurostat.
The figure gives the country the unenviable “first place” in terms of highest debt-to-GDP ratio among EU member-states.
Conversely, the Eurozone average stood at 86.1 percent of GDP, slightly down from 86.3 percent in the Q2 2018.
Compared with the preceding quarter, Q2 2018, Greece’s debt increased by 4.8 percentage points, the second highest rise after Cyprus, at 6.9 percentage points.
According to Greece’s statistics authority, EL.STAT, the country’s public debt rose by 21.493 billion euros compared with the end of Q3 2017.
The ballooning public debt as a percentage of GDP comes amid yet another primary budget surplus milestone for the same quarter, as the figure reached 3.842 billion euros in Q3 2018, beating Q3 2017 performance of 3.806 billion euros.
