The Italian government debt, according to a document of the Economic Planning of the coalition government under center-left PM Mateo Renzi, is expected to reach a record rate of 134.9% in relation to GDP until year’s end.

As reported by newspaper La Repubblica, the Italian coalition government will shortly be proceeding  to selling an additional percentage of the shares of national oil company “Eni” and National Electricity Company “Enel”, in a first move to reduce debt.

According to forecasts, the Italian public sector, with this new partial privatization is likely to reduce its stake of the two major businesses in its possession to 20% of the total, while trying to maintain strategic control of both companies.

Clearly, as observers point out, the “implementation of a program to reduce debt is a priority”. In just three years, the public debt-GDP ratio increased by 15%.

For the next three years, the previous government under Enrico Leta had predicted that the value of privatization should correspond to 0.5% of GDP.

Under the new Italian FinMin Piercarlo Padoan, this rate -during the period between 2014 and 2017- can be increased to 0.7%. “The green light is expected, however”, which according to La Repubblica has to be given by Renzi.