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France lowers 2015 deficit target to 3.8 pct: minister

Xinhua, March 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin on Thursday said the country's 2015 budget gap would drop to 3.8 percent from an initial target of 4.1 percent, thanks to better-than-expected deficit figures reported last year.

In 2014, the budget deficit stood at 4.0 percent of the economic output, narrowed by four percentage points from a previous estimate following efforts to cut public spending of local authorities and social security, new data released by Insee, the country's statistics office showed.

"The recovery of public accounts will continue in 2015, in accordance with the government's priorities by monitoring public spending," the French minister said.

In a communique posted on the ministry website, Sapin noted the Insee figures "pave the way for a revision of the 2015 public deficit to about 3.8 percent of GDP (gross domestic product)."

"The government is fully confident that it can bring its public deficit below 3.0 percent in 2017, while helping the economic recovery," he added.

For 2015, the ruling Socialist party pledged to save 21 billion euros (22.97 billion U.S. dollars) to honor its fiscal commitment after breaking its financial pledges several times since they took power in 2012.

They postponed by an extra two years their target to reach the 3 percent goal, the rate mandated by the European Union, with plans to keep its deficit at 2.8 percent of GDP by 2017.

Earlier this month, the EU offered France extra time to bring its budget gap to the safe line. However, the EU urged the French government to take additional measures to deliver its promises. Endit