October 31 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's finance ministry said on Tuesday it expects the consolidated budget to show a surplus of 2.39 billion levs ($1.4 billion/1.2 billion euro) for the January-October period, equivalent to 2.4% of the projected 2017 gross domestic product (GDP).
Consolidated budget revenue in the ten months through October is expected to come in at 29.1 billion levs, equal to 82.3% of the 2017 plan, the finance ministry said in a statement citing preliminary estimates.
Consolidated budget expenditures are projected to total 26.8 billion levs in the January-October period, or 72.8% of the full-year plan.
In a separate statement, the ministry said that final figures for the period January-September show a consolidated budget surplus of 2.42 billion levs, equivalent to 2.4% of the GDP. Consolidated budget revenue in the period came in at 26.15 billion levs, while budget expenditures totalled 23.73 billion levs.
Bulgaria's 2017 budget targets a deficit equivalent to 1.4% of the projected GDP, which is expected to grow by a real 2.5% to 92.4 billion levs. The maximum amount of fresh borrowing which the government can make in 2017 is set at 1.2 billion levs.
Last year, Bulgaria's consolidated budget showed a surplus of 3.28 billion levs, or 3.7% of GDP, in the first seven months of 2016, and a surplus of 3.31 billion levs, or 3.7% of GDP, in the January-August period, according to finance ministry data.
The consolidated budget showed a surplus equivalent to 1.6% of GDP in 2016, compared to a deficit of 2.8% of GDP in 2015. The turnaround to end-year budget surplus was Bulgaria's first since 2008.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)