July 20 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's government may further borrow up to 1.4 billion euro ($1.6 billion) by the end of the year to mitigate the negative impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, the country's finance ministry has said.
Slovenia has already borrowed 2.17 billion euro in 2020 to limit the adverse effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rest of the allowed borrowing for this year is 1.4 billion euro, the finance ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The borrowing since the beginning of 2020 has allowed the government to maintain the stability of the state budget and the possible assumption of further debt will depend on the developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the finance ministry said.
Earlier this month, the European Commission kept unchanged its forecast for Slovenia's economic performance this year, expecting it to shrink 7%. At the same time, the Commission cut its 2021 economic growth forecast for Slovenia to 6.1% from 6.7% predicted in May. The Commission noted that a recovery in consumption is expected to take place in the second half of 2020, thanks to the fact that household incomes have been maintained.
($ = 0.8727 euro)