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Portugal's budget deficit rises in Q1

Xinhua, April 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Portugal's budget deficit rose to 823.9 million euros (930.51 million U.S. dollars) until March, 107.9 million euros more than the deficit registered in the first quarter of 2015, the country's Directorate General for Budget said on Tuesday.

"This evolution was the result of a growth of revenue (0.2 percent) inferior to expenditure (0.8 percent), which reached 17,540.7 million euros and 18,364.6 million euros respectively," it said.

The Directorate General for Budget also said that the state managed to raise 8,815.9 million euros in taxation in the first quarter of the year, 115.1 million euros less than the same period in 2015.

It said the fall in revenue from taxation was influenced by a 0.7 percent drop in indirect taxation.

Portugal's Socialist government is aiming to reduce the country's budget deficit to 2.2 percent this year after it reached 4.4 percent last year.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa has said it won't be necessary to cut workers' pay or increase taxes to achieve the target, despite pressure from Brussels and having missed the European Union's 3 percent budget deficit threshold last year. (1 euro=1.13 U.S. dollars) Enditem