Portugal with a budget surplus of 1% until September

  • ECO News
  • 23 December 2019

Public accounts balance improved in the third quarter of the year and was even above the UTAO estimate. The government's goal is to close the year with a deficit of 0.1%.

The General Government surplus reached 1% of GDP in the first nine months of the year, revealed this Monday the National Statistics Institute (INE). The Ministry of Finance’s target for this year is a deficit of 0.1% of GDP, before expecting the first budget surplus in democracy in 2020.

“In the first three quarters of 2019, the general government balance was also positive, corresponding to 1.0% of GDP (0.4% in the same period of the previous year),” explains the INE report. Considering only the period between June and September, the general government balance was positive by around 2,461.3 million euros (or 4.6% of GDP).

The estimates of the Technical Budget Support Unit (UTAO) pointed to a general government budget balance – in national accounts (those that count for Brussels) – positive in 0.9% of GDP between January and September.

The figures now released by INE reveal a reduction in the budget balance compared to the deficit of 0.8% of GDP (penalised by the injection of capital in the New Bank) registered in the first half of the year.