site.btaFinance Ministry Expects LV2.3 Bln Budget Surplus at End-April

Finance Ministry Expects LV2.3 Bln Budget Surplus at End-April

Sofia, May 3 (BTA) - The Finance Ministry expects a budget surplus of 2,348 million leva as at the end of April, which amounts to 2.6 per cent of the projected GDP. The Ministry made public its estimates Tuesday, citing preliminary data.

By comparison, the January-April period of 2015 saw a deficit of 1,066.6 million leva (1.2 per cent of GDP). It means that as a relative share of GDP, the budget position has improved by 1.4 percentage points, the Ministry comments.

It says that the improved budget performance continues to be driven by higher revenues and cost-cutting compared to this time last year.

The Finance Ministry notes that due to the specifics of the tax calendar, the one-off nature of some proceeds and the shifting of a considerable part of the investment expenditures to the second half of the year, the current level of the budget surplus forecast as of April may not be interpreted as a stable trend towards an improvement in the budget balance. "The good parameters of the current budget execution in the past four months should be taken as a guarantee that the budget balance envisaged for the year is achievable," the statement goes.

As of the end of April 2016, the budget revenues and grants are expected at 12,191.3 million leva (36.9 per cent of the annual estimate), growing by 861.3 million from the first four months of 2015. The growth is due to the higher tax and non-tax revenues (by 1,026.7 million leva), whereas grant proceeds have dropped by 165.4 million leva.

The budget expenditures, including the Bulgarian contribution to the EU budget, amount to 9,843.3 million leva as of April 2016, which accounts for 28.3 per cent of the annual estimates. The expenditures for the same period of last year amounted to 10,263.4 million leva.

The part of Bulgaria's contribution to the EU budget, as paid as of 30 April 2016 from the central budget, amounts to 294.7 million leva.