November 2 (SeeNews) - Albania's government anticipates a budget gap of 7.9% of projected gross domestic product (GDP) in its consolidated budget plan for 2008, higher than the 4.63% deficit target for this year, the Finance Ministry said on Friday.
The draft budget forecasts economic growth at 6.0% and 3.0% average annual inflation in 2008, the same as this year's targets, the draft budget showed.
Albania had 5.5% economic growth in 2006 and average inflation of 2.36%.
"The draft budget bill has already been approved by the government and is due to be tabled to parliament," Albania’s agricultural minister, Jemin Gjana, told SeeNews.
The budget plan expects the country's GDP to grow in nominal terms to 1,075.71 billion leks ($12.75 billion/8.8 billion euro) next year from 982.2 billion leks for this year. The GDP per capita is seen rising to $3,426 in 2008 from $3,153 in 2007.
(1 euro = 122.234 Albanian leks)