State budget deficit widens to 58.2% of the annual target in Jan-Feb
The state budget deficit widened to PLN 11.96bn (USD 2.89bn), or 58.2% of the whole year target, the Finance Ministry said on Friday. According to earlier estimates by Finance Minister Jaroslaw Bauc, the deficit after March would reach 70% of the annual target set at PLN 20.5bn (USD 5bn), after breaking through the 50% level in February. Revenues reached PLN 20.9bn (USD 5.09bn), or 13% of the annual target, and expenditures totaled PLN 32.9bn (USD 8.02bn), which made up for 18.1% of the plan. The state revenues from indirect taxes amounted to PLN 13.06bn (USD 3.18bn), which means a 5% decline in real terms compared to the same period of 2000, while revenues from corporate taxes fell by 10%, and revenue from PIT rose 1% compared to the last year. Miroslaw Gronicki, the chief economist at BIG Bank Gdanski, said that lower revenues confirmed the stagnation of domestic demand. Although the budget gap is usually high at the beginning of the year, this year it is excessively so, as the government had to pay out extra PLN 2.6bn in compensations to pensioners due to underestimated inflation last year and some PLN 2bn to workers in the public sector. Concerns over the budget execution are strengthened by currently falling inflation rates and GDP growth, however. Lower state budget revenues from VAT, as well as from income taxes, are likely to lower the total budget revenues by about PLN 4bn this year from the planned PLN 161.05bn, Gronicki earlier estimated. bb, kp
Źródło:IntelliNews Daily
