British fiscal deficit narrows to 9.4 bln pounds in June

British government saw a fiscal deficit of 9.4 billion pounds (or 14.5 billion U.S. dollars) in June 2015, a decrease of 0.8 billion pounds compared to a year earlier, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Tuesday.

The deficit is higher than the market estimation consensus of 8.7 billion pounds.

British income tax receipts rose to 11.5 billion pounds in June while corporation tax brought in 1.7 billion pounds, both recording their monthly record highs, said ONS.

British public fiscal deficit decreased by 6.1 billion pounds to 25.1 billion pounds (or 1.4 percent of GDP) in the current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to June 2015) compared to the same period in 2014, data showed.

At the end of June, Britain's public sector net debt was 1,513.4 billion pounds, equivalent to 81.5 percent of the country's GDP. It was 77.4 billion pounds higher than that in a year earlier, figures also showed.

Martin Beck, senior economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club, said: "Today's figures mean that the public sector deficit has now fallen in each month of 2015 with another month of strong growth in tax receipts boosting the UK's fiscal position."

The London-based economic forecaster expects that the underlying strength of the economy proves to be more robust than the government thinks; the modest relaxation of austerity presented in the Budget (report released in early July) may prove to be the beginning of an easing trend. (1 pound = 1.55 U.S. dollars) Endit