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Germany to cut public debt below 70 percent/GDP next year - finance minister document

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the media after talks with Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the chancellery in Berlin April 1, 2015. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is cutting its public debt faster than expected, with Berlin now aiming to reduce its debt to less than 70 percent of its economic output next year, according to an excerpt of a finance ministry document seen by Reuters on Friday. Under European Union rules, set out in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, euro zone states are supposed to keep the ratio of their debt to their gross domestic product to 60 percent or less. That rule has been broken for years. Even Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse, has not been close to that level since the early 2000s, and its public debt rose further during the financial crisis in 2007-08 as the government pumping billions of euros into struggling banks. In its coalition agreement from 2013, Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition agreed to reduce the public debt to below 70 percent of GDP in 2017. However, Germany now will achieve this goal in 2016, one year early, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 68.75 percent, thanks to a reduction of toxic assets in government-run bad banks and generally good public finances, according to an excerpt of the finance ministry's latest stability report seen by Reuters. Berlin further aims to reduce its public debt gradually in coming years and almost fulfil the Maastricht criteria in 2019, with a planned debt-to-GDP ratio of 61.5 percent, the document showed. Helped by strong tax revenues and rock-bottom interest rates, Germany achieved its goal of a balanced federal budget -- also known as the "schwarze null" (black zero) -- one year early in 2014. It was the first time since 1969 that Germany had achieved the feat. (Reporting by Gernot Heller; Writing by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Larry King)