Latvia’s 2009 budget deficit at 6.8 percent of GDP
22.01.2010, 10:29Latvia’s 2009 budget deficit totaled about 6.8 percent of gross domestic product on a cash-flow basis, just below projections, Latvian finance ministry said.
Bloomberg quoted the ministry saying that the deficit was about 900 million lats ($1.8 billion) with revenue at about 4 billion lati and expenditure at about 4.9 billion lats.
“The budget deficit according to the cash flow principle is a bit smaller than had been planned,” said finance minister Einars Repse in the statement. “This shows that we are going In the right direction, decreasing state expenditures for which we are spending money that we have not earned.”
Latvia turned to a group led by the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund for a 7.5 billion-euro loan in December 2008 after its second-biggest bank needed a state rescue. The economy contracted an annual 19 percent in the third quarter, the European Union’s worst recession, after a credit fueled real estate boom turned bust, credit tightened and consumption collapsed.