Portugal announces first positive balance in August. Surplus was 402 million
The budget execution until August was positive. The Finance Minister achieved a surplus of 402 million euros.
The government achieved a positive balance of 402 million euros until August, after the accumulated deficit until July. The Ministry of Finance say that in August there had never been a surplus.
“The budget execution in public accounting of General Government (PA) until August registered an improvement of 982 million euros compared to 2018, reaching for the first time in this period a positive balance of 402 million euros,” says the statement sent by the Ministry.
However, “this improvement in the balance was the result of a 4.6% growth in revenue and 2.7% growth in expenditure”. In other words, revenues rose 1.7 times more than expenses, while by July revenues had grown four times more than expenses.
The good result adds to the good news known earlier this week when the National Statistics Institute (INE) improved last year’s deficit figure by a tenth to 0.4% of GDP and revised upwards the growth rates of the economy in 2017 and 2018.