According to the latest debt bulletin published by MoF, central government debt (excl. debt guaranteed by the central government) stood at €305.5bn at YE’12 from €303.5bn in 9M’12 and €368.0bn at YE’11, up 0.67% q-o-q, yet down 17.0% y-o-y, primarily due to PSI.

More than half of Q4’12 debt (59.9%) is allocated to Financial Support Mechanism loans (€183.1bn), while bonds issued domestically (€81.8bn) account for 26.8% of debt (down from the 9M’12 figure of 38.6%, due to debt buyback), short-term notes (€18.4bn) for 6.0%, special purpose and bilateral loans (€7.1bn) for 2.3%, other external loans (€5.4bn) for 1.8%, BoG loans (€5.2bn) for 1.7% and bonds issued abroad (€4.3bn) for 1.4% of Q4’12 debt.

On the composition of Q4’12 central government debt, MoF noted that c€100bn or 32.7% (from 43.4% in 9M’12) is fixed-rate, c€105bn or 34.3% (from 45.1% in 9M’12) is tradable and 96.7% is issued in euro.

Regarding the residual maturity of outstanding debt, €31.1bn or 10.2% of debt is short-term (<1 year), €55.3bn or 18.1% medium-term (1-5 years) and €219.1bn or 71.7% long-term (> 5 years). On the contrary, 38.5% of 2012 new borrowing has a maturity less than one year. The average residual maturity of 2012 debt increased to 15.3 years from 11.9 years in 9M’12, while the average maturity of 2012 new borrowing stood at 16.5 years from 2.4 years in 2011.

Furthermore, debt guaranteed by the central government amounted to €19.45bn at Ye’12 from 19.7bn in 9M’12, while cash deposits rose 68% q-o-q to €5.9bn at YE’12 from €3.5bn in 9M’12.

The redemption schedule of central government debt suggests that 18.4bn (€12.8bn bonds and loans and €5.6bn short-term notes) should be redeemed in 2013, €24.9bn (bonds and loans) in 2014 and €16.1bn (bonds and loans) in 2015. It should be pointed out that redemption amounts drop below the €10bn mark per year over the period 2016-2036, increasing thereafter to €13-15bn for 2037-39 and easing to less than €8bn for each of the next years until 2057.