Italy posts budget surplus in Q4 of 2024

ROME (Reuters) - Italy posted a public budget surplus of 0.4% of gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of last year, compared with a 6.6% deficit in the same period of 2023, official statistics agency ISTAT said on Friday.

It was the the first quarterly surplus since the last quarter of 2019, the statistics institute said.

Revenues rose by 3.4% year-on-year, versus an 8.3% fall in public spending.

ISTAT confirmed that over the whole of 2024 the deficit came in at 3.4% of GDP, a steep decline from 7.2% in 2023, and well inside the government's 3.8% target.

The full-year data was already issued by the statistics institute on March 3.

ISTAT gave the following quarterly public finance data. All figures are expressed as a percent of gross domestic product.

Public balance Revenues Spending Primary Balance*

Q4 2024 +0.4 55.4 55.0 +4.1

Q4 2023 -6.6 55.2 61.8 -2.8

* Public balance net of debt servicing costs

(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, editing by Gavin Jones)