Slovak News Back to the news
Budget Deficit Grew to €1.576 billion in November
Tuesday 01 December 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, December 1 (TASR) - The state-budget deficit increased by €39 million to reach €1.576 billion in November, according to data released by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday.
In November 2008, the state was able to post a surplus of €318 million. Meanwhile, the ministry was originally counting on a deficit of €1.009 billion for the whole of 2009, but the effects of the economic crisis have forced it to revise the figure to €3.15 billion. The revision was passed in Parliament at the end of October.
State revenues in November reached €9.748 billion, which is only 70.6 percent of the originally projected sum for the whole year of €13.116 billion. The revised budget projects revenues of only €10.971 billion, however.
State expenditures stood at €10.837 billion in the same month, which is 76.7 percent of the projected sum of €14.125 billion.
Revenues thus fell by 9 percent year-on-year, while expenditures rose by almost 10 percent.
The public-finance deficit should reach 6.3 percent of GDP instead of the originally projected 2.1 percent.
According to Finance Minister Jan Pociatek, the deficit should be reduced to 5.5 percent in 2010 and to 4.2 percent in 2011, while in the following year it should fall below the 3-percent threshold required by the Maastricht criteria.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
