RRZ Expects Last Year's Deficit to Reach €7.6 billion or 5.8 percent of GDP

Bratislava, January 8 (TASR) - Last year's general government deficit might reach €7.617 billion, or 5.8 percent of GDP, according to the latest (December) estimate of the Budgetary Responsibility Council (RRZ) released on Wednesday. This estimate is 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) better than the approved budget for 2024, but it's 0.6 p.p. higher year-on-year. RRZ drew up the current deficit estimate based on results at the end of last year. The share of state-budget expenditures in total expenditures of general government is 50.2 percent. RRZ will fine-tune the results when the figures for all general government entities are announced. RRZ slightly increased its deficit estimate in absolute figures by €40 million when compared to the November prognosis. "The fact that performance worsened month-on-month can mainly be ascribed to increased capital expenditures of the state budget and expenditures for co-financing at the end of last year. The impact of this on the deficit was only partly offset by non-tax revenues," stated the council. RRZ sees the most significant positive impact on the estimated general government deficit in expectations that current state budget expenditures are lower than planned. The council expects final spending to fall short of the levels envisaged in the budget. "Meanwhile, RRZ can see a negative risk for the budget in the health-care sector, where we expect more rapid growth in expenditures on health care and a worse [financial] performance among hospitals. Lower tax revenues, especially when it comes to value-added tax (VAT), will have a negative impact on the budget as well," added RRZ. ko/df