Slovakia’s budget deficit rose from €846 million at the end of February to €1.155 billion at the end of March, compared to the €655 million recorded as of March 2011, according to preliminary figures released by the Finance Ministry on April 2, as reported by the TASR newswire.
Revenues amounted to €2.468 billion at the end of last month, 10.3 percent lower on an annual basis and 18.1 percent of the revenue plan for the whole year that is budgeted at €13.625 billion. State expenditures for the first three months of 2012 stood at €3.263 billion, an increase of 6.3 percent year-on-year and 20.9 percent of the planned expenditures of €17.3 billion for 2012.
A deficit of €3.675 billion is projected for the full year, or 4.6 percent of GDP, TASR wrote. The lower revenues for the first quarter are due to the fact that Slovakia's budget was without €251 million from the EU that is expected to flow to the country later and will have no impact on the full-year deficit according to the Finance Ministry.
The ministry also said the quarter reflected a drop of €60 million in tax revenues year-on-year because the deadline for submitting tax returns was set on April 2 this year because March 31 was a Saturday. This will result in a higher collection of taxes in April.
The ministry projected that the budget deficit will be 4.4 percent of GDP in 2012.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
