The state budget deficit reached €1.108 billion to the end of June, up from €832 million in May, the Finance Ministry reported on Wednesday, July 1. The deficit has now exceeded the sum planned for the whole of 2009 (€1.009 billion), the TASR newswire reported.
The increase in the budget deficit was due especially to decreasing state incomes during the current economic crisis. Last year's figure for June was €137 million.
State-budget incomes reached €4.605 billion in the first half of 2009 or just 35.1 percent of the planned total for 2009 of €13.116 billion, falling by 11.2 percent y-o-y. State expenditures, on the other hand, increased by 7.3 percent y-o-y in June 2009, reaching €5.713 billion. They are expected to reach €14.125 billion by the end of the year, TASR wrote.
The Finance Ministry is expected to publish its estimate for incomes from tax and payments to the state for 2009 on July 2 with a significant rise in the deficit in the cards. The originally-planned deficit drawn up in the autumn of last year was under 3 percent for 2009 as is normally required by the EU's Growth and Stability Pact. However, Finance Minister Jan Pociatek said earlier this year that the deficit could exceed 9 percent of GDP due to the slump in the Slovak economy.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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