State budget deficit high up in March

The Romanian taxpayer has got tired of paying taxes in March. The Exchequer in its turn did a poor job of collecting its dues, in spite of all those measures meant to improve collection. This made the state budget deficit simply skyrocket in March. From the 2,275bn ROL in the first two months of this year, the spending and revenue balance has been severely upset, registering 7,723bn ROL deficit in Q1. The state budget deficit rose by 5,448bn ROL in March. If adding the increase in the social security budget deficit, the consolidated budget has come to accumulate a deficit 12 times higher than that at the end of February. The Finance Ministry admits that revenues in the first three months of the year are “rather low” compared with the annual target. The increase in the state budget deficit dwarfed even the persistent problems of the social security budget, which came up short of over 2,500bn ROL in Q1, up about 1,000bn ROL from February. ZF