Slovakia's government closed last year with a deficit of 4.8 percent of GDP according to the EU statistics office, Eurostat, which included loans to state-run hospitals and railway companies as part of the deficit. These loans occurred during the first government of Robert Fico between 2008 and 2010 and increased the deficit by €633 million, or about 0.9 percent of GDP, the SITA newswire wrote based on the Eurostat report.
The government deficit last year hit €3.327 billion, down from over €5 billion in the previous two years. The government's overall debt rose by over €29.9 billion and as a percentage of GDP went up by 2.24 percentage points to 43.31 percent.
Without the transfers to state-run hospitals and railway companies from previous years, the government would have closed the year with a deficit of 3.9 percent of GDP, SITA wrote, and that would have been better than the budget plan.
After two years with deficits of around 8-percent, the government's performance improved in 2011.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
