Minister of Finance Citu: Deficit up by 50 billion against budget adopted in December 2019

The budget deficit increases up to 90.9 billion lei following the budget rectification, an amount that represents 8.6% of GDP, so that the deficit is currently 50 billion lei higher against December 2019, when the budget for the current year was adopted, the Minister of Public Finance, Florin Citu, stated on Friday, in the beginning of the gov't meeting. "In the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, we recorded a drop of only 3.9%. But we have a more serious drop in the second half, as expected. Starting from these macro elements of the economy, the budget deficit increases up to 90.9 billion lei, which represents 8.6% of GDP, compared to the budget adopted in December, which means an increase in the deficit by 50 billion lei. A part of it, 20 billion come from declining revenues, and 30 billion from rising spending," Florn Citu told Prime Minister Ludovic Orban. The Minister of Finance specified that the current budget rectification is based on a contraction of the economy of 3.8% for the current year, "an estimate that has worsened compared to the initial estimate", two percentage points coming from the two months in which the economy was shut down. AGERPRES (RO - author: George Coman, editor: Mariana Nica; EN - editor: Cristina Zaharia)