The general government deficit of Slovakia was 0.78 percent of gross domestic product last year. This stems from the autumn notification of the deficit and debt from Eurostat, which thus reduced the originally reported government deficit of Slovakia from the spring notification by 0.26 percentage point. In comparison with 2016, the deficit fell by 1.44 percentage points, according to current Eurostat figures.
However, the statistics authority did not report the specific reasons for adjusting the notified government deficit downward.
“In the calculation of the deficit and debt for the years 2014 to 2017 we used the latest available data for the entities classified in the general government sector and Eurostat recommendations,” says the Slovak Statistics Office, as cited by the TASR newsire.
Along with the deficit reduction, according to Eurostat, public debt was also reduced in Slovakia in proportion to gross domestic product. While in 2016, the gross government debt accounted for 51.77 percent of GDP, last year it was 50.95 percent of GDP. In nominal terms, however, the public debt still increased last year by €1.177 billion to €43.23 billion.