UTAO: deviation in the 1st quarter of the deficit is “risk factor” for meta … – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

The budget deficit in the first quarter, from 5.8% of GDP presented an “unfavorable shift” against the annual target, the UTAO considers to be a “risk factor” to meet the 2015 deficit target, 2.7%.

                     

                         In its quick note on national accounts for general government, to which Lusa had access today, the Technical Unit of Budget Support (UTAO) states that “the overall general government deficit in the first quarter exceeded the target for the annual deficit” , being 3.1 percentage points above the target of 2.7% of GDP.

The independent technical supporting parliament say that in nominal terms and excluding extraordinary measures, “the deficit first quarter represents approximately 49% of total planned deficit for the whole year. “

” The scale of the unfavorable deviation (…) it is still a risk factor for the fulfillment “of the budgetary target the government set for this year, to reduce the budget deficit to 2.7% of gross domestic product (GDP), warn yet.

The economists UTAO consider that “there is uncertainty” when the budgetary performance of the rest of the year and identify factors both ways.

The execution until April (registered public accounting) has presented “less favorable fiscal performance than anticipated in the state budget for 2015 but the results of budget execution have been improving throughout the year, says the UTAO.

In addition, the technical note that “this year there may be a higher uncertainty about the fiscal performance compared to other years to the extent that a change occurs legislative cycle “.

However, UTAO proviso that, despite the” weight mean “deficit in the first three months of the year,” the negative deviation from the annual target in the first quarter should not be understood as necessarily indicative of expected performance for the whole year, “as it is” still very partial information. “

Last week, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) released the value of the budget deficit of the general government by March, which reached 2.4443 billion euros, equivalent to 5.8% of GDP in that period, which compares with a deficit of 5.9% in the same period.