Bulgaria January-August 2020 Budget surplus at 1.62B leva
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry said on September 30 that the consolidated Budget surplus for the first eight months of 2020 was 1.62 billion leva, exceeding the ministry’s 1.53 billion leva forecast issued last month.
This was higher than the 1.11 billion leva surplus recorded in the same period of 2019, but last year’s figures were affected by the lump-sum payment in August 2019 to the US of $1.2 billion under international government procurement contracts to acquire eight F-16 Block 70 aircraft and related equipment.
For September, the Finance Ministry forecast the Budget surplus shrinking to 890 million leva, or 0.8 per cent of GDP, due to higher spending on infrastructure projects.
The state Budget had a surplus of 1.08 billion leva and the EU funds surplus was 539.9 million leva. Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget for the first eight months of 2020 was 808.5 million leva.
Revenue in January-August was 28.82 billion leva, a decline of 486.1 million leva compared to the same period of last year. Tax revenues were down to 23.01 billion leva, compared to 23.26 billion leva in January-August 2019.
The finance ministry said that it saw a gradual improvement in the collection of its the main taxes, which was compensating for the slowdown recorded in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Budget spending was down to 27.2 billion leva in the first eight months of this year, compared to 28.19 billion leva in the same period of 2019. The main reason for the lower spending this year was the F-16 lump-sum payment in August 2019, the ministry said.
(Illustration: svilen001/sxc.hu)
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