THE CUMULATIVE budget deficit for 2011 rose from €2.159 billion in September to €2.341 billion in October. Compared to last year, the deficit is now 30.6 percent lower, as the budget gap stood at €3.373 billion in October 2010, the TASR newswire reported. For the whole year of 2011 the deficit is projected to reach €3.8 billion, compared to €4.4 billion in 2010.
Budget revenues amounted to €9.311 billion as of October, a rise of 9.9 percent year-on-year. This sum accounted for 70.8 percent of the figure (€13.148 billion) projected for the year as a whole.
Meanwhile, expenditure stood at €11.653 billion as of October, representing a fall of 1.6 percent compared to last year and 68.7 percent of the €16.958 billion planned for the whole year.
The Finance Ministry stated that in the following days they would release updated macroeconomic and tax prognoses which would reflect the situation in international financial markets.
The ministry hoped to leave the budget deficit target for 2011 unchanged at 4.9 percent of GDP, the ministry's spokesperson Martin Jaroš stated.
