British fiscal deficit narrows to 6.9 bln pounds in Feb.

The British government saw a fiscal deficit of 6.9 billion pounds (10 billion U.S. dollars) in February 2015, a decrease of 3.5 billion pounds compared with a year earlier, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Friday.

The deficit is significantly lower than the market estimation consensus of 8.5 billion pounds.

Britain's self-assessed income tax receipt were 4.2 billion pounds in February, increasing by 1.8 billion pounds compared with February 2014, data showed.

From April 2014 to February 2015, British public sector net borrowing excluding public sectors banks was 81.8 billion pounds, seeing a decrease of 8.8 billion pounds compared with the same period in the fiscal year 2013-14 that ended March 2014.

At the end of February, Britain's public sector net debt was 1.46 trillion pounds, equivalent to 79.6 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). It was also 83.6 billion pounds higher than that in a year earlier, figures showed.

Earlier this week, British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced in the budget statement that the country's public fiscal deficit as a share of GDP is forecast to fall to 4.0 percent in 2015-16, and to reach a surplus of 0.2 percent of GDP in 2018-19. (1 pound = 1.48 U.S. dollars) Endit