Italy's Minister of Economy and Finance Pier Carlo Padoan speaks during a discussion on "A Reform Agenda for Europe's Leaders" during the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Washington October 9, 2014. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Italian economy minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Friday that Italy, the euro zone’s third-biggest economy, would see its debt pile begin to decline in 2016. “The debt is recently going up and will start to go down in 2016,” he said at an event hosted by German newspaper Die Zeit in Frankfurt, adding that while debt was a problem, it was “sustainable”.
After the debt goes down in 2016 Italy will remain the euro zone's third-biggest economy.