For the third month in a row, Italy's public debt rose to a new historic high in April, breaking the record it had only set the month before, the Bank of Italy said on Monday.
The central bank calculated the debt at 1.75 trillion euros, up from 1.741 billion euros in March, which broke the previous record of 1.707 billion euros in February.
Italy has the third highest debt in the world after the United States and Japan, respectively.
National statistics bureau Istat's current forecast is for the debt to climb to 110.5% of GDP this year, compared to 105.8% in 2008.
The European Union has predicted that the debt in 2009 will be 113% of GDP while the International Monetary Fund's latest forecasts are even more pessimistic, with the debt jumping to 115.3% of GDP this year and 121.1 in 2010.
At the end of 2008 debt stood at 1.66 trillion euros or 105.8% of GDP compared to 103.5% (1.6 trillion euros) at the end of 2007.
