Bulgaria January-February 2018 Budget surplus at 752.3M leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said on March 30 that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first two months of 2018 was 752.3 million leva, or 0.7 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, short of the ministry’s forecast of 771.7 million leva issued last month.
The figure represented a decrease of 0.1 percentage points of GDP compared to the same period of 2017, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 831.8 million leva, the ministry said in a statement.
For March, the ministry forecast a Budget surplus of 605.7 million leva at the end of the month.
The state Budget had a surplus of 980.9 million leva and the EU funds deficit was 228.7 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first two months of 2018 was 220.1 million leva.
Revenue in January-February was 6.21 billion leva, an improvement of 8.3 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax and non-tax revenue was up 13.4 per cent, but that was partially offset by aid figures that were lower than in the first two months of 2017.
Tax revenues were up by 14 per cent compared to January-February 2017, at 5.38 billion leva.
Budget spending was 5.46 billion leva in January-February, up from 4.9 billion leva in the same period of 2017. In part, that was due to higher pension and health insurance payments resulting from the pension hikes in 2017, the ministry said.
(Photo: Michael Faes/sxc.hu)
