ROME (Bloomberg) The Italian Treasury will begin 2011 with more than 30 billion euros ($40 billion) in reserves to provide a cushion amid debt-market volatility, said Maria Cannata, the Finance Ministry’s director of public debt.

“At the beginning of 2010 it was over 30 billion and at the end of this year it will be probably higher, for sure not less,” Cannata said in an interview today in Rome. “This will allow us to be very comfortable at the beginning of 2011, when there are fewer redemptions than in 2010.”

Italy expects to sell between 220 billion euros and 230 billion euros of bonds next year and faces redemptions of 164 billion euros, about 10 billion euros less than this year, said Cannata, manager of Europe’s biggest debt load in nominal terms. Investors pushed the yield premium demanded to hold Italian ten-year bonds over German bunds to a euro-era high last month after Ireland agreed to a bailout, hurting the bonds of Europe’s other high-debt nations. Italy’s strategy of extending the average maturity of its debt has helped limit the impact of the wider spreads on borrowing costs, which should be about 70 billion euros in 2010, in line with its initial target.

Euro zone news: See Page 35