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Finance Ministry Raises Deficit Forecast for 2010 to 6.98 percent
Wednesday 23 June 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, June 23 (TASR) - The Finance Ministry on Wednesday raised its forecast for this year's public-finance deficit as a result of what it says are worse-than-expected tax revenues.
As part of his outlook, Finance Minister Jan Pociatek forecast an end-of-year public-finance deficit of 6.98 percent, up from last year's 6.8 percent and the ministry's earlier prediction of 5.5 percent.
According to him, there is room for a targeted deficit cut either by saving or increasing revenues. "It's possible to do on the revenue side via sales of redundant property or greenhouse-gas emission rights," he said.
Pociatek rejected suggestions that the deficit resulted from increased government spending. "It resulted from a change in taxes ... The state spends even less than is projected in the budget," he said. As of Wednesday the state had spent €6.5 billion of the projected €16.3 billion for 2010.
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