Budgetary surplus of 0.87 pc of GDP after first nine months of 2015

The general budget execution at end-September 2015 posted a surplus of RON a 6.1 billion, equivalent to 0.87 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), as compared to the RON 0.4 billion surplus, 0.06 percent of the GDP, recorded at the same period of 2014, according to the Ministry of Finance (MFP) data on Monday.

The revenues of the general budget, amounting to RON 169.1 billion, representing 24 percent of the GDP, were by 8.8 percent higher in nominal terms as compared to the same period of the last year, and by 0.7 percent as share in the GDP.

“Increases were recorded compared to the same period of the previous year at collections from: income tax (+13.6 percent), VAT (+12.5 percent), non-fiscal revenues (+12.8 percent), profit tax (+10.9 percent) and excises (+8.2 percent). The revenues from social insurance contributions have decreased only by 1.4 percent as compared to the last year, being influenced by the 5 percent cut of the contributions paid by employers and by the growth on 2015 by 0.5 percent of the contribution share to the 2nd pensions’ pillar.

At the local administrations’ level, increases were recorded against the previous year at property taxes and dues by 2.9 percent, taxes on the goods’ utilization by 5.5 percent and non-fiscal revenues by 1.7 percent,” the release shows.

The general budget expenditure, amounting to RON 162.9 billion have increased in nominal terms by 5.1 percent as compared to the similar period of 2014, yet it went down by 0.2 percent as GDP share.

A significant reduction was recorded for the interest expenses (-8.1 percent) due to the payments seasonality and the decline in yields on government securities.

In parallel, a significant increase of 41.7 percent is to be noticed, over the same period last year of expenses incurred for projects financed from external grants, MFP reports. The investment expenses, including capital expenditure, and the related development programmes funded from internal and external sources, were worth RON 19 billion, 2.7 percent of the GDP, respectively, in nominal terms by 15.4 percent higher than in the same period of 2014.