Bulgaria ends 2024 with 3.0% consolidated Budget deficit

Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has said that the consolidated Budget deficit for the full year 2024 was 6.14 billion leva, on cash basis, or three per cent of the estimated gross domestic product.

The Budget shortfall for 2024 was marginally higher than the previous year, when the Finance Ministry reported a deficit of 5.62 billion leva, or 2.9 per cent of GDP.

Consolidated Budget revenues was 72 billion leva, an increase of 7.4 per cent over 2023, but 3.4 per cent short of the target set in the 2024 Budget Act.

The ministry said that this shortfall was mainly due to the lower amount of incoming EU funds, namely the delay in receiving the second and third tranches of funding under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Tax revenue in 2024 was 58.7 billion leva, which was 12.2 per cent higher than the previous year and 1.3 per cent above the ministry’s target.

Consolidated Budget spending was 78.14 billion, 4.1 per cent below the Budget target, the ministry said. Although it did not provide a comparison with 2023, last year the ministry reported 72.68 billion leva in spending for 2023, translating to a 7.5 per cent increase in spending for 2024.

The ministry said that the increase was due primarily to higher social spending on pensions and increased “personnel spending” in the public sector.

(Photo: Pedro Moura Pinheiro/flickr.com)

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