Italy’s gdp surprise

New data reveals the truth about Italy’s deficit/GDP ratio…

New data from Eurostat reveals that Italy ended 2007 with a deficit/GDP ratio of 1.9% and a public debt/GDP ratio of 104%. The Eurostat figures were the same as those recently issued by both the Bank of Italy and the Italian statistics institute Istat.

This comes as National Statistics Bureau Istat recently reported that Italy's inflation rate jumped from 2.9% in February to 3.3% in March, the highest since September 1996.

Italy has the highest debt in the European Union and the third highest in the world behind Japan and the United States. Belgium is second in the EU with 84.9% followed by Hungary with 66%, Germany with 65%, France with 64.2%, Portugal with 63.6% and Malta with 62.6%.