ROME, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) statistical office confirmed Italy's deficit at 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016, down from 2.6 percent in the previous year, the Italian Institute of Statistics ISTAT said on Monday.
The country's public debt was 132.0 percent of GDP at the end of last year, up by 0.5 percentage points compared to the end of 2015.
The Italian government expenditure was 49.4 percent of GDP, down from 50.2 percent in 2015.
Eurostat's figures were based on the statistics provided by Italy (and all the other member states, as requested by EU rules) for the application of excessive deficit procedure in late September, the Italian agency explained in a report.
The EU statistical office did not express reservations on Italian data, which were therefore the same already unveiled by ISTAT on Sept. 22.
Italy's key parameters, however, remained overall above European levels. The average deficit-to-GDP ratio last year was at 1.5 percent within the euro-zone, and at 1.7 percent in the whole EU (against 2.1 and 2.4 percent in 2015, respectively). The debt-to-GDP ratio dropped to 88.9 percent from 89.9 percent in the euro-zone, and to 83.2 percent from 84.5 percent in the EU, according to Eurostat.
Italy's debt remains the second largest in the EU after that of Greece.
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