Finance Minister Brigita Schmögnerová said on July 6 the government had limited spending in the first three quarters of 1999 to 69% of full-year budgeted expenditure.
The government had adopted a 46% limit for the first half of the year, but actually spent 92.211 billion crowns or 47.3% of the 194.9 billion budgeted for the year.
The government is targeting a full-year 1999 state budget deficit at 15 billion crowns, or about two percent of gross domestic product. The deficit reached 7.14 billion crowns in the first half of the year. Recently, new revenue raising measures have been put in place to meet the targets, including an increase in the lower rate of value added tax to 10% from six and a seven percent import surcharge.
