Intervention in Banif aggravates deficit higher than expected – iOnline

The Banif resolution operation late last year determined a worsening of the general government deficit (AP) of 2.4632 billion euros in 2015.

 
 

According to the provisional estimate published yesterday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the operation at Banif had an impact of 1.4 percentage points in the budget deficit. That is, if the state had not decided to intervene in Banif, the deficit would have been only 3% at the end of last year. With the operation, the deficit rose to 4.4%.

 
 

“The assets transferred to the Octant [public company that was responsible for managing the bank's assets] were purchased by 746 million and EUR 179.2 million include real estate assets, which were recorded as gross capital formation fixed an impact on the PA financing needs, “the statement said INE, stressing that” Octant injected about 29 million euros in Banif – Banco de Investimento, SA, recorded as a capital transfer, also impacting the balance. “

 
 

Surprise or maybe not, the impact of Banif in the State accounts turned out to be higher than expected at 208.2 million euros. Initial estimates pointed to an impact 2255 million (1.2% of GDP).

 
 

The advanced value INE Thursday puts the budget deficit without the effect of Banif in 3.03% of 2015 GDP, which means that without this operation, it could be possible to close the excessive deficit procedure by the European Commission, which sets a balance not exceeding this limit in nominal terms. However, the INE analysis does not assess what the value of the budget deficit by discounting all extraordinary measures.

 
 

bop and INE do not understand The disclosure of the first notification 2016 relating to the excessive deficit procedure of public accounts 2015 was scheduled for yesterday morning, but the INE announced its postponement to March 31, arguing that it had “available all necessary information.”

 
 

Still in the morning, the Ministry of Finance issued a statement to ensure that “sent to the INE, in time, all the information on the state accounts to the calculation of deficit and public debt in 2015″. “It is therefore incorrect to reported information that charges the Ministry of Finance responsibilities in a possible delay in the official announcement of the first notification in 2016 on the excessive deficit procedure.”

 
 

In the afternoon, the Bank of Portugal issued another statement realizing that “made on the agreed terms, the collection of data relating to the calculation of public debt in 2015, which made available to the National Statistics Institute (INE) for the purpose of preparation of the 1st notification of the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) “. But “for the purpose of completion of the Notification, remains a matter of methodological nature that is being handled by the Bank of Portugal and the INE.”

 
 

The INE confirmed however that the highlight of the postponement EIP is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance “shall exclusively to the fact that the INE and Banco de Portugal are finalizing the methodological approach and the subsequent compilation of public debt data for the tables associated with the notification. “

 
 

The data released by Statistics also indicate that the total revenue of the state increased by 1.9% in 2015, mainly due to the improvement of current income.

 
 

On the expenditure side, the INE points out that “the total expenditure of AP decreased by 3.5% between 2014 and 2015″, with the main contribution coming from the “capital expenditure, with a negative variation of 29 5% “. And this is coming into effect of the extraordinary measures, which particularly affected the capital expenditure.