General government deficit reaches HUF 823.3bn in June, 92.3pc of full-year target

Budapest, July 21 (MTI) – Hungary’s cashflow-based general government deficit, excluding local councils, came to 823.3 billion forints (EUR 2.7bn) at the end of June, the economy ministry confirmed in a second reading of data on Tuesday.

The deficit reached 92.3 percent of the 892.4 billion forint full-year target.

The ministry noted that the deficit had reached 813.7 billion forints at the end of June last year and attributed the difference between the two years to changes in European Union funding.

The central budget deficit came to 868.1 billion forints for January-June, while the social insurance funds and separate state funds had surpluses of 15 billion forints and 29.8 billion forints, respectively.

For the month of June, the deficit came to 312.2 billion forints. The gap was well over the 132 billion forint deficit in the same month a year earlier, but the ministry noted that interest expenditures were up by almost 60 billion forints for the month, which can be explained by differences between the timing of interest payments during the year.

The ministry noted that the deficit is front-loaded, as usual, with expenditures exceeding revenue in the first half of the year, adding that continuing economic growth was raising tax revenues.

The ministry reaffirmed the full-year deficit target of 2.4 percent of GDP.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters