The state budget in February collected 31% less than in January so that the 1,599bn ROL surplus at the end of that month had actually turned into a 3,874bn ROL deficit by late February. The two-month deficit therefore reaches 2,275bn ROL. One of the reasons for the decrease in the fiscal revenues could be the industrial output decline in February, compared with the same time in 2002. The state budget spent about 1,200bn ROL less than in January.
The two-month situation of the social security budget shows 1,507bn ROL deficit, which affected the balance of the general consolidated budget, so that the latter came up 533.3bn ROL (0.03% of GDP) short at the end of February.
The Finance Ministry says it keeps within the projected targets, though, except for the social security budget that concluded the first two months with 1,507.9bn ROL in deficit, in spite of the 2,317.4bn ROL projected excess.
The Finance Ministry explains this by the lower social security budget debt collection rate compared with the spending rate, that is 12.7% for revenues and 14.1% for spending respectively. At the same time, the 3% reduction of the share of social security budget contributions in the total direct taxes is grounded on the five percent tax cut as of January 1, 2003.
The unemployment budget registered 696bn ROL surplus, as announced by the Finance Ministry. Furthermore, in spite of the health care system crisis, the general consolidated budget's two-month situation shows the national health care insurance fund to have posted 883.2bn ROL surplus.
The general consolidated budget revenues, 82,348.2bn ROL, were 26.6% higher in nominal terms compared with the first two months of 2002.
"The increase is important, but it has to be considered by bearing in mind the legislative modifications between the two periods compared, namely the profit tax and VAT-related regulations, as well as the 24.4% import volume growth in January compared with the same month in the previous year," the Finance Ministry says.
The credits taken by ministries amounted to nearly 6,000bn ROL at the end of February. The privatisation budget was registering 319bn ROL revenues for two months, compared with the 333bn ROL in late January.
The general consolidated budget spending totalled 82,881bn ROL in the first two months of 2003, up 17.7% from the same time last year. All this considering the inflation in late February was 16.3% compared with February 2002. Primary expenses were up 23.6% from the same time in 2002. On the other hand, the share of the public debt interest-related expenses in the total spending fell 4.3 percentage points.
razvan.voican@zf.ro
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