Bulgaria January-October 2018 Budget surplus at 2.84B leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first 10 months of 2018 was 2.84 billion leva, or 2.6 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, but fell short of the ministry’s 2.86 billion leva forecast issued last month.
The figure for January-October was higher than in the same period of 2017, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 2.49 billion leva. For November, the ministry forecast a Budget surplus of 2.81 billion leva at the end of the month.
The state Budget had a surplus of 3.22 billion leva and the EU funds recorded a deficit of 376.6 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first 10 months of 2018 was 909.6 million leva.
Revenue in January-October was 32.61 billion leva, well above the 29.16 billion leva recorded during the same period of last year. Tax revenues were up by 9.4 per cent compared to the first 10 months of last year, reaching 26.76 billion leva.
Budget spending was 29.77 billion leva in January-October, up from 26.67 billion leva in the same period of 2017.
In part, that was due to higher pension and health insurance payments resulting from pension hikes in 2017 and 2018, as well as higher salaries in the education sector, but also increased capital spending using EU funds, the ministry said.
(Photo: Steve Ford/sxc.hu)
