Bulgaria January-April 2018 Budget surplus at 1.32B leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first four months of 2018 was 1.32 billion leva, or 1.3 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, just short of the ministry’s 1.33 billion leva forecast issued last month.
The figure represented a decline of 0.3 percentage points of GDP compared to the same period of 2017, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 1.59 billion leva. For May, the ministry forecast a Budget surplus of 1.45 billion leva at the end of the month.
The state Budget had a surplus of 1.53 billion leva and the EU funds deficit was 209.5 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first four months of 2018 was 390.2 million leva.
Revenue in January-April was 12.97 billion leva, up from 12.02 billion leva in the same period of last year. The Finance Ministry said that tax and non-tax revenue was up by 8.8 per cent, but the overall decline was due to the lower amount of aid received by the budget, mainly due to the high amount of EU payments made in the early months of last year, which set a high baseline for this year. Tax revenues were up by 8.9 per cent compared to the first four months of last year, at 10.87 billion leva.
Budget spending was 11.65 billion leva in January-April, up from 10.43 billion leva in the same period of 2017. In part, that was due to higher pension and health insurance payments resulting from the pension hike in July 2017, the ministry said.
(Photo: Michael Faes/sxc.hu)
