MADRID, April 23 (Xinhua) -- At the end of 2018, Spain's public debt stood at 2.48 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and not at 2.63 percent as it was previously reported in March, the country's Treasury Ministry confirmed on Tuesday.
The ministry explained that the correction came after a revision of the data by the European Union's (EU) statistics agency, Eurostat. The difference between the two sets of figures was due to an accounting adjustment.
The revised end-2018 figure is considerably below the public deficit of 3.08 percent registered at the end of 2017.
This reduction allows for the EU's excessive deficit procedure against Spain to be lifted as the figure is now below the Union's 3 percent of GDP reference value. The country has been subject to the procedure -- which meant close economic surveillance by the European Commission -- since 2009.
Spain's economy has grown at a rate higher than the EU average since the end of the economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund has recently predicted Spain's economic growth to continue at a rate of 2.1 percent in 2019 and 1.9 percent in 2020.
