Spanish public debt inches higher in January

MADRID: Spanish gross public debt rose slightly in January, climbing by 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) from a month earlier to 1.15 trillion euros, the Bank of Spain said on Friday.

Debt as a ratio of gross domestic product was 98.47 percent according to Reuters calculations using the most recent National Statistics Institute (INE) growth data for the full year 2017.

That compared to a calculated debt-to-GDP ratio of 99.39 percent in December.

Spain ended 2016 with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 98.99 percent, while the government expects debt to have ended 2017 at 98.1 percent of economic output and to fall to 96.8 percent of its GDP this year.