Mario Draghi's two waves of liquidity certainly supported the trend: between the end of 2011 and February 2012 the portfolio of government bonds held by Italian banks grew by over 20%. In absolute terms, the amount increased by 58 billion, going from 209,639 to 267,358 billion euros. This was announced today by the Deputy Minister of Economy, Vittorio Grilli, in response to a question posed by the League to the Chamber.
“These increases”, declared Grilli, “appear to be significant, especially if compared to the fact that in 2011 there were monthly increases which they have never exceeded the maximum of around 7,5 billion for government bonds“. Reporting the data from the Bank of Italy Bulletin, Grilli added that the first ECB auction "may have influenced" the values, while the Ltro2 at the end of February would have counted for little.
As regards the aggregate data of public securities held by banks the total value in February amounts to 281,710 billion euro, against 224,144 billion at the end of 2011.
