Bulgaria Q1 2019 Budget surplus at 1.81B leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first three months of 2019 was 1.81 billion leva, or 1.6 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, exceeding the ministry’s forecast of 1.79 billion leva issued last month.
The figure represented an increase of one percentage point of GDP compared to the same period of 2018, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 592.7 million leva, the ministry said in a statement.
For April, the ministry forecast a Budget surplus of 2.68 billion leva at the end of the month.
The state Budget had a surplus of 1.66 billion leva and the EU funds surplus was 230.6 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first three months of 2019 was 144.1 million leva.
Revenue in January-March was 10.86 billion leva, an improvement of 17.8 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were up 8.8 per cent compared to January-March 2018, at 8.52 billion leva.
Budget spending was 9.05 billion leva in January-March, up from 8.63 billion leva in the same period of 2018. In part, that was due to higher pension and health insurance payments resulting from the pension hikes in 2018, wage hikes in the education sector and a higher contribution to the EU budget, the ministry said.
(Photo: svilen001/sxc.hu)
