Bulgaria January-July 2020 Budget surplus at 1.72B leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said on August 31 that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first seven months of 2020 was 1.72 billion leva, narrowly missing the ministry’s 1.73 billion leva forecast issued last month.
This was a big drop compared to the same period of last year, when the country recorded a surplus of 3.22 billion leva. The ministry said that the Covid-19 pandemic had a negative impact on all main sources of tax revenue due to the effects of lockdown imposed in March to slow down the spread of the disease.
For August, the Finance Ministry forecast the Budget surplus shrinking to 1.53 billion leva, or 1.3 per cent of GDP.
The state Budget had a surplus of 1.18 billion leva and the EU funds surplus was 541.1 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first seven months of 2020 was 755.3 million leva.
Revenue in January-July was 25.26 billion leva, a decline of 713.4 million leva compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were down to 20.05 billion leva, compared to 20.48 billion leva in January-July 2019.
Budget spending was up to 23.54 billion leva in the first seven months of this year, compared to 22.76 billion leva in the same period of 2019. Mainly, that was due to higher pension and health insurance payments resulting from the pension hikes in 2019 and increased wages in the public sector, the ministry said.
(Illustration: svilen001/sxc.hu)
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