Hungary’s cash flow-based budget, excluding local councils, ran a 1,496.5 billion forint (EUR 4.6bn) deficit at the end of September, the Finance Ministry said in a preliminary release on Monday.
The deficit reached 109.9 percent of the 1,360.7 billion forints full-year target.
The central budget deficit reached 1,542.9 billion forints, while separate state funds had a 24.4 billion surplus and social insurance funds a 22 billion surplus.
In September alone, the budget surplus came to around 149.8 billion forints.
Budgetary revenue from VAT and personal income tax in January-September was up 377.9 billion forints and 188.5 billion forints, respectively, from the same period a year earlier, while payroll tax revenue climbed by 205.3 billion. Income from excise tax was up 77.3 billion forints over the same period.
In September transfers from the European Union accounted for a 157.9 billion forints income, pushing revenue from the EU for the first nine months to 341 billion forints. The finance ministry said that several hundred billion forints could be transferred in addition from the EU by the end of the year.
On the expenditures side, domestic and EU-funded developments continue to be significant obligations, for example the Modern Cities Programme and the Healthy Budapest Programme.
The ministry noted that the Hungarian economy is on a balanced and dynamic growth path, demonstrated in the 4.9 percent GDP growth in the second quarter of the year. This has been achieved mostly by the economic policy of the government, such as boosting employment and whitening the economy.
With increasing budgetary revenues the 2.4 percent of GDP deficit target for the full year, calculated using EU accrual-based accounting rules, is achievable, parallel with economic growth over 4 percent, the ministry said.
via MTI