Average debt 30´700 euros

COMPANIES and families are continually in high levels of debt to the Spanish financial institutions, and at the close of March the amount of debt owed to banks, savings banks and cooperatives was 1.21 billion euros, or almost 27'500 euros per citizen, which in the case of the Balearics rises to 30.728 euros. According to the latest figures from the Bank of Spain, companies and families increased their debt with Spanish financial institutions by something more than 267'000 million euros between March 2005 and March 2006, which represents an interannual increase of 28.4 percent. The savings banks are those who had most money lent to families and companies at the end of March, nearly 590'000 million euros, as opposed to the 554'000 million which the banks had lent out. The credit cooperatives, for their part, recorded credit with a value just above 67'500 million euros at the end of March. During the last 12 months (March 2005-March 2006), the debt per resident in Spain has grown by an average of 6'000 euros, while since just the beginning of the year this debt has increased by some 1'500 euros.