The public-finance deficit is expected to reach 6.29 percent of GDP this year, Slovakia’s Finance Minister, Ján Počiatek, said at a meeting of the parliamentary finance committee on September 3, the TASR newswire reported.
The shortfall will be €2.5 billion higher than the one stated in the originally planned budget and will reach €4 billion. The original deficit announced in the autumn of last year was planned to stand at 2.1 percent of GDP, but the crisis caused the Slovak economy to slump by around 5 percent in the first half of this year. Počiatek first increased the deficit estimate to 3 percent of GDP before now doubling it, TASR wrote.
Počiatek said that in the current crisis situation the European Commission does not have a problem with such a significant breach of the 3 percent limit set by the Stability and Growth Pact. He said that the estimated deficit is suitable in these conditions and creates a stabilising effect on the economy. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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