Treasury: Government debt balloons to 103 percent GDP

[bemildred]

The government's debt ballooned from NIS 448
billion at the end of 2001 to NIS 502 billion at
the end of 2002, according to a report released
Thursday by the Finance Ministry's debt
management
unit. Putting this in personal terms, every
citizen, including children, owes some NIS
761,000.



For international comparisons,
government debt is measured
as
a proportion of the economy (or
gross domestic product), and
this debt-to-GDP ratio in
Israel jumped last year from
94.8 percent to 102.9 percent.


The Masstricht Treaty, which
lists the criteria for European states to join
the common currency, stipulates that a member
country must not allow the debt-to-GDP ratio to
top 60 percent. The average ratio within the
OECD (30 states of the developed world, but not
including Israel) is 75 percent, while in the
United States it is 60.7 percent and only 34.1
percent in Ireland.