Bulgaria January 2017 Budget surplus at 884.2M leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first month of 2017 was 884.2 million leva, or 0.9 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, exceeding the ministry’s forecast 867.3 million leva forecast issued last month.
The figure represented a decline of 0.2 percentage points of GDP compared to the same period of 2016, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 991.6 million leva, the ministry said in a statement. In part, that was due to the higher inflow of EU funds at the start of 2016, in connection to final payments on the 2007-2013 EU budget cycle.
For February, the ministry forecast a Budget surplus of 822.4 million leva at the end of the month.
The state Budget had a surplus of 790.2 million leva and the EU funds surplus was 93.9 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first month of 2017 was 71.3 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, according to the ministry statement.
Revenue in January was 3.33 billion leva, an improvement of 6.7 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were up by 12.2 per cent compared to the first month of last year, at 2.88 billion leva.
Budget spending was 2.45 billion leva in January, up from 2.14 billion leva in the same period of 2016. In part, that was due to higher pension and health insurance payments resulting from the pension hike in July 2016, the ministry said.
(Photo: Michael Faes/sxc.hu)
