SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), November 19 (SeeNews) – Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation government has adopted a 2008 budget draft with a deficit of some 53.1 million marka ($39.7 million/27.2 million euro), up from 28.9 million marka planned for the current year, a Finance Ministry official said on Monday.
“The preliminary draft for next year’s budget sees revenues at 1,693.5 million marka and expenditures at 1,746.7 million marka. The planned deficit is around 53.1 million marka,” ministry spokeswoman Amela Mulabdic told SeeNews.
No information was available for the planned deficit as a percentage of the Federation's gross domestic product (GDP).
In April the Federation parliament adopted the region's budget for 2007 with a revenue target of 1,406.7 million marka and a spending target of 1,435.6 million marka. It then adopted a revised budget in September, lifting the spending target to 1,586.3 million marka. No information was available for the revised revenue target.
The Muslim-Croat federation is one of the two autonomous parts forming war-divided Bosnia. The other is the Serb Republic. They have separate governments, parliaments and budgets. Bosnia also has a weaker central government and parliament with a smaller budget.
Mulabdic said the main factor behind the raised targets in the Federation’s budget for next year were expected higher revenues from indirect taxes. The government said last week it expected to collect 1,196.3 million marka from indirect taxes next year, or 116.3 million marka more than the planned amount for 2007.
Earlier this month the Serb Republic government adopted a balanced preliminary 2008 budget draft, setting both spending and revenue targets at 1.50 billion marka, up from a revised 1.39 billion marka for 2007.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bosnian marka)