Bulgaria Budget surplus at 789.4M leva in January-July 2015
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said that the consolidated Budget surplus in the first seven months of 2015 came in at 789.4 million leva, or 0.9 per cent of the forecast gross domestic product (GDP), an improvement of 2.3 per cent of GDP compared to the same period of last year, when the consolidated Budget showed a deficit of 1.15 billion leva.
July marked the second consecutive month of declining surplus, after peaking at 1.09 billion leva in May. But the decline fits in the annual trends, where summer months mark higher Budget spending than revenue; it also fell short of the 801 million leva surplus forecast by the Finance Ministry a month earlier.
The ministry said that the high surplus this year was the result of improved revenue collection, while spending remained roughly unchanged compared to 2014. In August, the surplus is expected to shrink further, to 601 million leva.
In the first seven months of the year, the state Budget had a surplus of 406.3 million leva and the EU funds surplus was 383.1 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first seven months of 2015 was 540.3 million leva.
Consolidated Budget revenue in January-July was 19.02 billion leva, an improvement of 12.9 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were 14.44 billion leva.
Budget spending was 18.23 billion leva in the first seven month of the year, up by 1.3 per cent compared to 2014.
(Photo: Alessandro Paiva)
