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Budget Deficit Increased to Nearly €1 billion to End of March
Thursday 01 April 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, April 1 (TASR) - The state-budget deficit rose from €780 million in February to €983 million in March, the Finance Ministry announced on Thursday.
In March 2009, the budget recorded a deficit of €205 million. A record-breaking deficit of €3.746 billion is projected for the whole of 2010.
State revenues to the end of March 2010 stood at €2.511 billion, or 20 percent of the budgeted sum for the entire year - €12.531 billion. This represents an increase of 4.1 percent in annual terms.
In turn, expenditures to the end of March amounted to €3.495 billion, an increase of 33.7 percent compared to March 2009. The sum represents 21.5 percent of the total amount budgeted for 2010 - €16.277 billion.
The Government has promised an overall consolidation of public finances in 2010. The public-finance deficit should fall to 5.5 percent of GDP in 2010 and to 4.2 percent in 2011, according to a plan approved in November.
Slovakia should again meet the criterion of the Growth and Stability Pact that requires a public-finance deficit of no more than 3 percent in 2012. Finance Minister Jan Pociatek believes that this plan is ambitious enough to be approved by the European Commission, which requires Slovakia to comply with the required threshold by 2013.
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