The Fiscal Council stated on Thursday that the decision to draw up the budget review in the middle of the year was a good one but the budget deficit would total around RSD 200 billion instead of the planned RSD 178 billion.
The Fiscal Council decided that the budget review is not completely adequate because projected budget revenues are rather optimistic and the predicted savings will not be achieved either.
The Council said that the budget revenues would total around RSD 15 billion lower than the sum envisaged in the budget while expenditures would exceed the sum envisaged in the budget by around RSD 10 billion, states a release issued ahead of the press conference.
According to the release, a severe reduction in the budget deficit and interruption of public debt increase are the most important tasks in the economic policy because the crisis is otherwise inevitable.
The Fiscal Council warned that the public debt will otherwise continue increasing and that it may reach 65 percent of the GDP at the end of 2013.
At the end of May, public debt totalled around 62 percent of the GDP and it achieved record increase in the previous three quarters, totalling EUR 3,2 billion.
The assessments according to which the ratio of public debt against the GDP is considerably lower than 62 percent are the result of certain methodologically mistaken interpretations and disregard of the local self-government debt, the Fiscal Council noted.
The Council noted that another claim voiced in public according to which the public debt should stabilise or even drop in 2013 is not true either.
The Fiscal Council fully backed the government’s commitment to launch certain structural reforms and recalled that the government drafted the plan for conclusion of the public company restructuring and announced a change in the public company management.
Source Tanjug
