July 7 (SeeNews) - Serbia's budget was in deficit of 236.4 billion dinars ($2.3 billion/2 billion euro) in the first five months of 2020, compared to a surplus of 8.3 billion dinars in the like period of 2019, official figures show.
Primary budget deficit totalled 180.7 million dinars, versus a 65 billion dinars primary budget surplus in the first five months of 2019, according to data published on the website of the finance ministry.
Total budget revenues fell by a real 8.5% on the year to 455.8 billion dinars in the period under review, while expenditure increased 41.3% to 692.3 billion dinars.
Tax revenues declined by a real 5.9% to 405.1 billion dinars, non-tax revenues went down 27.7% to 47 billion dinars, and grants increased to 3.8 billion dinars from 2.7 billion dinars.
On the expenditure side, current expenditure rose by a real 44.7% to 624.9 billion dinars, while capital expenditure went down to 52.4 billion dinars from 52.9 billion dinars in January-May 2019.
In May 2020 alone, Serbia reported a budget deficit of 122.4 billion dinars, based on revenues of 76.1 billion dinars and expenditure of 198.5 billion dinars. The primary deficit totalled 120.3 billion dinars.
In April, Serbia's government revised the 2020 state budget, increasing the projected fiscal deficit to 381 billion dinars in order to cover the costs of measures aimed at limiting the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
Serbia's budget balance showed a surplus of 12.8 billion dinars in 2019, compared to a surplus of 32.2 billion dinars in the previous year.
(1 euro = 117.581 dinars)