“During the first half of this year, the fiscal surplus remained the same as in the first half of 2024, but more important are the final figures for 2024 and a sharper drop in public debt,” said the Minister of State and Finance, at the beginning of the social concertation meeting, in response to the data released today by the National Statistics Institute (INE) regarding national accounts.
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento highlighted that the government’s forecast pointed to a public debt ratio of 94.9% of GDP in 2024, but there was a “more pronounced reduction,” reaching 93.6% of GDP, “which contributes to Portugal’s improved position, helps, as has happened in recent weeks, to improve its rating, and is good news for all Portuguese people,” he emphasised.
When asked about the Public Finance Council (CFP) forecasts, which predict the Portuguese economy will grow 1.9% this year and 1.8% in 2026, a downward revision compared to the April projection due to lower public investment and exports, the Finance Minister admits that next year “is a more demanding year from a budgetary perspective,” given that there is “a very large volume of loans [from the] RRP [Recovery and Resilience Plan] to be executed,” but emphasizes that the data released today “help improve public accounts, without, of course, ignoring the fact that 2026 is a very demanding year.”
The Finance Minister also emphasised that the government’s goal is to reduce public debt by “3 to 4 percentage points each year” and that in 2024, “this reduction was slightly above 4 percentage points,” which constitutes “a sign of a prudent and responsible fiscal trajectory.”
The public debt ratio was 93.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the end of 2024, instead of the 94.9% calculated in March, according to the Excessive Deficit Procedure notification submitted to Brussels.
“The general government gross debt will have decreased to 93.6% of GDP (96.9% in the previous year),” reads the document released today by the INE, the second notification.
This figure represents a revision of the results reported in the first Excessive Deficit Procedure notification released in March, which indicated that the public debt-to-GDP ratio had reached 94.9% in 2024, the lowest value since 2009 (87.6%) and below the State Budget (OE) forecast of 95.9%.