Rising state budget revenues are closing the gap between the collected money and the spending scheduled within the general consolidated budget, down to 0.3% of GDP at the end of September. The latest budget deficit target specified within the memorandum sealed with the IMF stands at 1.64% of GDP.
In mid-year, the gap amounted to 0.6% of GDP. In this context, the Finance Ministry has been able to supplement certain expenditures in the last months of this year.
Despite the upbeat performance of the state budget revenues, the social security budget in the first nine months of this year collected only 71.7% of the scheduled amounts, while expenditures stood at 75%. Thus, the gap amounted to almost 3,713 billion ROL (91 million euros), though social security was subsidised by the state budget with 9,374 billion ROL (230 million euros).
At the same time, the health insurance fund saw a deficit of 2,538 billion ROL (62 million euros), with the gap between revenues and expenses coming to 2.8 percentage points.
At the level of the general consolidated budget, revenues increased by 0.8% of the gross domestic product, as compared to the similar period of last year. Thus, they reached almost 75% of the target projected for the twelve months of the year. Tax revenues witnessed the highest growth, by 0.9% of GDP. In this category, an important revenue source was the profit tax, which climbed by more than 52% in nominal terms against the first nine months of 2003. This comes as an effect of bolstered business activity amid improved productivity and efficiency, as well as of the alignment of the profit tax quota to the standard level of 25% starting January 2004.
Revenues derived from social security contributions increased by 19.5% in nominal terms from the same period of last year.
An even faster growth pace was registered by revenues from VAT, owing to the rapid expansion of business in the field of trade, as well as to the improved collection rate.
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