Budget expenses up 250m euros

A new budget adjustment, increasing government expenses by 11,000 billion ROL (250m euros), will be seen in early September, when pensions will also go up 10%, Premier Adrian Nastase said.

The adjustment will push budget expenses up 3%. Mentioning recent talks with the delegation of the International Monetary Fund, the Premier said that real economic growth of at least 6.5 percent is expected this year, representing a record-high for the past 15-20 years. Also, the collection rate of consolidated budget revenues has exceeded original expectations.

The considerable economic growth is expected to bring almost 20,000 billion ROL in additional revenues to the State’s consolidated budget.

“We have already allocated 7,000 billion ROL for the adjustment in July, based on a cut in expenses. The next adjustment will be approved in a Government meeting at the beginning of September and will be worth more than 11,000 billion ROL. The rest, up to 20,000 billion ROL, will be used to build reserves, because we cannot take the risk of spending all of our extra revenues this year,” Nastase maintained. The Prime Minister said the adjustment would contribute to the creation of certain social programmes.

Pensions will see a 10% increase as of September 1, 2004, instead of January 1, 2005, the date that had been previously approved. The pension increase accounts for additional expenses worth some 3,000 billion ROL by the end of the year, Nastase stated.

Moreover, another 2,200 billion ROL will be directed to healthcare.

County councils’ budgets will also receive an additional 6,000 billion ROL, Nastase also said.