Bulgaria H1 2016 Budget surplus at 3.07B leva, below forecasts

Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first half of 2016 was 3.07 billion leva, or 3.4 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, just short of the ministry’s 3.09 billion leva forecast issued last month.

The figure represented an improvement of 2.4 GDP percentage points compared to the same period of 2015, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 889.5 million leva, the ministry said in a statement. It forecast a Budget surplus of 3.27 billion leva at the end of July.

The state Budget had a surplus of 1.67 million leva and the EU funds surplus was 1.4 billion leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first four months of 2016 was 397.4 million leva.

Higher revenue was the main reason for the continued improvement of public finances, coupled with the reduction of government spending compared to the same period of last year, the ministry said.

Revenue in January-June was 17.7 billion leva, an improvement of 8.6 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were up 9.8 per cent compared to the first six months of last year, at 13.5 billion leva.

Budget spending was 14.6 billion leva, down from 15.4 billion leva in the same period of 2015.

(Photo: Alessandro Paiva/sxc.hu)

Comments

comments

The Sofia Globe staff

The Sofia Globe - the Sofia-based fully independent English-language news and features website, covering Bulgaria, the Balkans and the EU. Sign up to subscribe to sofiaglobe.com's daily bulletin through the form on our homepage. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32709292