Bulgaria H1 2019 Budget surplus at 3.23B leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has said that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first half of 2019 was 3.23 billion leva, or 2.8 per cent of this year’s estimated gross domestic product, exceeding the ministry’s forecast of 3.2 billion leva issued last month.
The figure represented an increase of 1.2 percentage points of GDP compared to the same period of 2018, when Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 1.71 billion leva, the ministry said in a statement.
For July, the ministry forecast a Budget surplus of 3.25 billion leva at the end of the month.
The state Budget had a surplus of 3.11 billion leva and the EU funds surplus was 116.9 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first six months of 2019 was 717.5 million leva.
Revenue in January-June was 22.29 billion leva, an improvement of 16 per cent compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were up 10.4 per cent compared to the first half of 2018, at 17.69 billion leva.
Budget spending was 19.06 billion leva in January-June, up from 17.5 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 higher state subsidies, the ministry said.
(Photo: Alessandro Paiva/sxc.hu)
