Finance minister Gheorghe Pogea: budgetary deficit registered 4.4% of GDP after the first eight months

Romania’s budgetary deficit after the first eight months of the year is estimated at about 4.4% of GDP, Romanian Finance minister Gheorghe Pogea declared, quoted by Romanian news agency NewsIn. The minister declared that the final data concerning the budgetary execution after the first eight months will be known for sure later this month.

After the first seven months, Romania’s general consolidated budgetary deficit reached 17.6 billion lei (4.2 billion euro) representing 3.5% of GDP after spending increased by 7.4% to 109.8 billion lei and revenues dropped by 6.9% to 92.2 billion lei, Finance ministry data shows.

Romanian authorities, together with IMF representatives agreed after the IMF evaluation mission in August to adopt a new budgetary deficit target of 7.3% of GDP compared to a 4.6% threshold initially fixed.

Currently, the government takes into account an economic decrease of 8.5% for this year and a GDP value of 497.3 billion lei, compared to 531.3 billion lei estimated previously.