Bulgaria reports January-February Budget surplus below forecast
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first two months of 2016 was 915.2 million leva, or one per cent of forecast gross domestic product, below its earlier forecast that put the surplus at 961 million leva.
The figure still represented a swing of 1.1 percentage points compared to 2015, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget deficit of 105.5 million leva, the ministry said in a statement. It forecast a Budget surplus of 1.86 billion leva in March, boosted by strong revenues at the end of the month because of taxes due at that point.
The state Budget had a surplus of 508.6 million leva and the EU funds surplus was 406.6 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first two months of 2016 was 179.7 million leva.
Higher revenue was the main reason for the continued improvement of public finances, the ministry said. Revenue in the first two months of 2016 was 5.52 billion leva, an improvement of 15.9 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were up 10 per cent compared to the first two months of last year, at 4.23 billion leva.
Budget spending was 4.6 billion leva, down from 4.87 billion leva in the same period of 2015.
(Photo: Sanja Gjenero)
