ROME: Italy on Monday revised up its gross domestic product for 2013 after a series of methodological changes and as a result the budget deficit and public debt-to-GDP ratios were lowered, national statistics institute ISTAT reported.
Due to the upward revisions to GDP, the 2013 deficit-to-GDP ratio was cut to 2.8 percent from 3.0 percent, more comfortably inside the European Union's 3 percent ceiling. The deficit in 2012 was left unchanged at 3.0 percent.
The GDP revisions, which affected data from 2009, significantly lowered Italy's public debt-to-GDP ratio, one of the highest in the European Union.
The 2013 ratio was cut to 127.9 percent from an originally reported 132.6 percent, while the 2012 ratio was lowered to 122.2 percent from 127.0 percent.
The annual GDP fall of 1.9 percent in 2013 was unrevised, while 2012 was marginally revised up to show a contraction of 2.3 percent instead of 2.4 percent.
The methodological changes, which are being conducted across the EU, are also expected to raise this year's GDP and so give Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government more hope of keeping the deficit inside 3 percent despite an economic recession.
The new system, known as SEC 2010, changes the way that spending on research and armaments is classified in GDP calculations and also includes revenue from illegal activities related to drug trafficking and prostitution.
In Italy, the revisions also increase the size of the public sector by including numerous bodies which were previously excluded, and strip out the impact of debt swap operations carried out by the Treasury.
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