Portugal closed last year with a GDP deficit of 0.4%
National Institute of Statistics (INE) released this morning new data on public accounts, showing a GDP deficit lower than reported to Brussels on March.
Portugal closed last year with a deficit of 0.4% of GDP, lower than that reported in March to Brussels, said the National Statistics Institute (INE) this Monday. INE data shows that in the first half of this year, the deficit stood at 0.8%, penalized by Novo Banco. The target for 2019 as a whole remains at 0.2%.
The figures are included in the excessive deficit report published by INE this morning and sent to Eurostat. This possibility – for last year’s deficit to be revised downwards from 0.5% of GDP – had already been anticipated in March by INE, as ECO advanced at the time.
“According to the provisional results obtained this year, consistent with the 2016 base of the Portuguese National Accounts, in 2018 the general government borrowing requirement reached 910.9 million euros, which corresponded to 0.4% of GDP (3.0% in 2017)”, says INE.
