Economy being deprived of much-needed liquidity by state

January data on the execution of the state budget revealed that expenditure has again been held back excessively, while the state's expired debts remained high at the end of 2017 as despite the payout forced by the country's creditors, the state has continued to run up fresh arrears to taxpayers and suppliers.

Provisional figures from the Finance Ministry revealed yesterday that spending last month on the Public Investments Program did not even come to half that foreseen, amounting to just 83 million euros against a budgeted 175 million. Budget expenditure missed its target by 123 million euros, reaching 3.09 billion euros.

Revenues were much higher than planned last month, amounting to 4.78 billion, against 3.89 billion in the budget, or 891 million euros above target. Consequently the primary surplus amounted to 1.88 billion euros, compared to a target for 722 million...

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