BERLIN, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Germany significantly reduced its debts by 52.5 billion euros (58.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, a decline of 2.7 percent compared to the previous year, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) revealed on Wednesday.
The total debt for the German government, the federal states, local authorities and social security funds, including all extra budgets, was 1,916.6 billion euros at the end of December 2018, according to the Destatis figures.
The total debt corresponded to a per capita debt of 23,124 euros, the German statistical office calculated.
Germany benefited from a strong domestic economy with record employment and higher wages last year, Destatis said.
According to Destatis, debt reduction was progressing at all levels of government. The federal government reduced its debts by 2.4 percent to 1,213.3 billion euros while the German federal states reduced debts by 2.7 percent to 570.5 billion euros last year.
The exceptions to the overall reductions were the federal states of Bremen, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, which were not reducing their debts, the German statistical office noted.
"At first glance, the observed decline in public debt is positive," said Sebastian Dullien, scientific director of the Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, which is linked to the German trade unions.
"But what you do not see in these statistics is that the focus of financial and economic policy has also had massive negative consequences for the German economy," noted Dullien.
The "decline in debt has been bought by weak public investment" which resulted in poor transport and communications infrastructure that created "useless costs for German companies" and damaged Germany as an industrial location, Dullien criticized.
