The state budget deficit went down 4.6% in April, while the deficit of the national single health insurance fund simply skyrocketed, becoming more than nine times higher. At the same time, the excess of the privatisation budget plummeted from 114.5bn ROL to 12.7bn ROL. On the other hand, the cut in the spending for the public debt led to this consolidated budget chapter registering a 37% higher excess.
Four months through the year, the general consolidated budget deficit amounted to 6,549.8bn ROL, up 1.9% from the first quarter, accounting for 0.35% of the Gross Domestic Product anticipated for this year.
If compared with the first four months in 2002, the deficit is only 56.1% of the level registered back then, due to the cut in spending for the interests on the public debt by 916.2bn ROL mainly, and to the slight increase in the budgetary revenues, which gained 25.5% in nominal terms.
The main negative balances in the first four months of the year were posted by the state budget, whose deficit rose 341bn ROL to 7,382.3bn ROL, by the social security budget – 2,380bn ROL, which saw a slight deficit decline by 124bn ROL and by the national single health insurance fund, which jumped 1,463.5bn ROL to 1,663.5bn ROL. Although collection was low for the healthcare fund, the expenses totalled 32.6% of the anticipated full-year level. Another factor to have pushed the consolidated deficit up was the 1,419bn ROL increase in the foreign loans contracted by ministries, which reached 9,505bn ROL.
The budgetary revenues amounted to 171,186.5bn ROL, i.e. 30.4% of the yearly target, while expenses totalled 177,736.4bn ROL, up 3% in real terms compared with the same time in 2002.
The budgetary deficit for this year, as set in the agreement with the IMF, should not go beyond 2.65% of GDP. The consolidated budget deficit in 2002 amounted to 2.7% of GDP, below the estimates made early in the year.
The Government is planning to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund in order to obtain a slightly higher budgetary deficit for the upcoming adjustment, so that it could allocate additional funds for infrastructure investments.
The social security budget has yet to recover from the 5% drop in contributions as of January 1, so that the amount collected in the first four months was 4.5% lower in real terms than in the same time last year.
On the other hand, the VAT-related revenues rose 23.2% in real terms, following the elimination of certain incentives granted to small and medium-sized enterprises and to the companies operating in depressed areas until this year. An improved collection was also a reason for this increase.
The 33.3% import growth showed in a 31.4% increase in customs duties collected in real terms. At the same time, a series of customs duties quotas went down, some of them as low as to zero, especially those levied on the imports from the European Union.
razvan.voican@zf.ro