Bulgaria Expects First January Budget Surplus Since 2009

Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry on Monday forecast a budget surplus for January equivalent to 0.1% of the Gross Domestic Product planned for the year.

The expected surplus of some BGN 85M will be the first recorded in the month of January since 2009, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

In January 2014 Bulgaria posted a budget deficit of BGN 373.3M equivalent to 0.5% of the planned GDP.

The expected turnaround to surplus on an annual basis in January was mostly due to growth in budget revenue, particularly tax revenue, according to the statement.

Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said last week that he expected customs revenue in January to be around BGN 200M higher than a year earlier.

For January 2015, revenues and grants under Bulgaria’s consolidated budget are expected to total around BGN 2.48B, or 8.2% of the 2015 plan, according to preliminary data and estimates. This will be a nominal increase of 19.5% over the same month of 2014.

Meanwhile, consolidated budget spending for January 2015 is expected to amount to some BGN 2.39B, which is 7.3 % of plan for the year and close to the spending level reported in the same month of 2014.

The Finance Ministry said it would publish figures for budget revenue and spending for January at the end of this month.

Bulgaria’s minority coalition government has projected 3% deficit in the 2015 budget bill adopted by Parliament in December. Budget revenue is forecast at 36.8% of GDP and expenditure is set at 39.8% of GDP.

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