Puerto Rico has voted overwhelmingly to take steps to become the 51st state of the US amid the island territory’s economic struggles.

Though the plan garnered significant support, only 23 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the plebiscite.  

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello campaigned for statehood as the most efficient way to boost future economic growth for the island, which is 70 billion US dollars in debt.

"From today going forward, the Federal government will no longer be able to ignore the voice of the majority of the American citizens in Puerto Rico," Rossello said in a statement.

Puerto Rico was handed over to the US at the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898.

Over the past decade, the island’s economy has been hobbled by debt and a pension shortfall of 120 billion US dollars.