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Pociatek: We'll Do Our Utmost to Lower Deficit to 5.5 percent This Year
Wednesday 05 May 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Secovce, May 5 (TASR) - Lowering the public-finance deficit from 6.8 percent of GDP in 2009 to 5.5 percent this year represents quite a challenge, but the Government is determined to meet its obligations, Finance Minister Jan Pociatek (a Smer-SD nominee) said after the Government's away session in Secovce (Kosice region) on Wednesday.
The European Commission doesn't expect Slovakia to succeed. In its prognosis published on Wednesday, it estimated that the public deficit will stand at 6 percent of GDP this year. "I look at those estimates with some respect and take them into consideration, but we have a task to do, namely, to keep it at 5.5 percent this year. We'll do our utmost to have the deficit at 5.5 and not 6 percent," said Pociatek.
According to him, ongoing budget management isn't indicative of how public finances will turn out at the end of the year. In April 2010, the deficit rose to €1.480 billion, whereas in April 2009 it was only €347 million. The deficit is projected to reach a record €3.746 billion for the whole of 2010.
Pociatek claimed that the higher deficit figures this year are also due to the need to cover losses sustained by state-owned insurer Socialna Poistovna as a result of the private second pension pillar.
The Government promised an overall consolidation of public finances in 2010. The 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 Growth and Stability Pact, which requires public-finance deficit of no more than 3 percent, in 2012. 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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