Cyprus has most foreign-owned debt in EU

At the end of 2022, Cyprus was the EU country with the largest proportion of debt held by non-residents, according to data released by Eurostat on Monday.

In Cyprus, non-resident holders of debt accounted for 93 per cent of general government gross debt. In this respect, Cyprus came ahead of Estonia (74 per cent), Latvia (64 per cent), and Austria and Lithuania (both 61 per cent).

On the other side of the spectrum, the share of general government debt held by resident financial corporations stood at 75 per cent in Denmark, followed by Sweden, Croatia, Italy, the Czech Republic and Malta.

According to a Eurostat press release, generally across the EU less than 10 per cent of debt was held by the resident non-financial sectors (non-financial corporations, households and non-profit institutions serving households), with the noticeable exceptions of Hungary and Germany (both 22 per cent), Malta (18 per cent), Portugal (14 per cent), Ireland and Sweden (both 11 per cent).

For the vast majority of the current euro area members, all or almost all (>99 per cent) of their central government gross debt at face value was denominated in national currency.