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FinMin: Several One-off Factors Are Behind High State Budget Deficit
Monday 01 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 1 (TASR) - Slovakia's remarkably large state-budget deficit of €780 million for the first two months of 2010 is four times higher than the one for the same period last year. This was caused by several factors that suddenly came together and made the figure grow rapidly, however, said the Finance Ministry on Monday.
One of the factors was that a significant portion of the public debt has been paid using money from the state budget. "In January and February, as much as 30 percent of this year's payments towards debt cutting were covered," FinMin spokesman Miroslav Smal told TASR, adding that further payments transferred in the months ahead won't be as massive.
Among other, normally one-off, payments that are unlikely to re-occur this year, Smal listed Slovakia's transfers to the EU budget and selected organisations under the remit of individual ministries, such as the State Fund for Housing Development.
According to Postova banka analyst Eva Sadovska, it's no easy task to evaluate the development of the state budget so far, as only two months have passed. However, there's no doubt that the deficit is remarkably bigger than a year ago, she said.
The ministry announced on Monday that the state budget fell into a deficit of €780 million in February, after recording a surplus of €23 million in January. In February 2009, the budget posted a deficit of €185 million.
Budget revenues were up by 3.5 percent year-on-year at €1.461 billion in February 2010, or 11.7 percent of the expected sum for the whole year - €12.531 billion. Budget expenditures went up by 40.5 percent y-o-y to €2.242 billion. This was 13.8 percent of the scheduled sum for the whole of 2010 - €16.277 billion.
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