Deficit fell to 0.3% until September
The budgetary deficit stood at 0.3% in the period between January and September this year. The amount is better than the goal and it seems to meet the prime minster's positive expectations.
The budgetary deficit of the first nine months of the year fell to 0.3%, according to data disclosed this Friday by Statistics Portugal (INE). This amount shows there is a significant reduction in comparison to the first semester of 2017 and it meets both the goal and the prime minister’s expectation of ending 2017 with a deficit below 1.3% of GDP.
Once again, the Government is going to surpass the deficit goal it had set in the beginning of the year. In the 2017 State Budget, the Finance minister Mário Centeno committed to a deficit below 1.6% of GDP in 2017. In April, with the submission of the Stability Programme, the goal was revised downwards to 1.5%. And in October, within next year’s Budget, the goal moved to 1.4%.
This Friday, INE disclosed that the financing needs of the Public Administration between January and September, according to the Maastricht definition, was of 393.9 million euros, which corresponds to a deficit of 0.3% of GDP. This equals UTAO’s estimate and stands way below the 2.8% that was registered in the same period of 2016.
