The state budget recorded a deficit of €780 million in February, after recording a surplus of €23 million in January, the Finance Ministry announced on March 1, as reported by the TASR newswire. In February 2009, there was a deficit of €185 million. Budget revenues were up by 3.5 percent year-on-year at €1.461 billion in February 2010, or 11.7 percent of the expected sum for the whole year - €12.531 billion.
Budget expenditures increased by 40.5 percent y-o-y to €2.242 billion. This was 13.8 percent of the scheduled sum for the whole of 2010 - €16.277 billion, TASR wrote. The government has promised an overall consolidation of public finances in 2010. The public deficit should fall to 5.5 percent of GDP in 2010 and to 4.2 percent in 2011 according to a plan approved in November.
Slovakia should again meet a criterion of the EU’s Growth and Stability Pact which requires a public-finance deficit of no more than 3 percent in 2012. Finance Minister Ján Počiatek believes that this plan is ambitious enough to be approved by the European Commission which requires Slovakia to comply with the required threshold by 2013. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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