France's National Assembly endorses 2018 budget

PARIS, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- France's lower house of parliament on Thursday passed the government's 2018 budget draft that aims at respecting the European bloc's financial limits by cutting public spending and tax.

In its first budget draft, since President Emmanuel Macron took office in May, the government forecast the budget gap at 2.6 percent in 2018 compared to the 2.9 percent expected this year, down from previous estimates of 2.7 percent and 3.0 percent respectively.

With that aim, French government hopes to save 16 billion euros (18.97 billion U.S. dollars) this year and a further 80 billion euros by 2022 by freezing the expenditure of some ministries, local authorities and social security welfare.

Adding to that, the government targeted 7-billion-euro cut in taxes in 2018 to improve households' purchasing power and boost their expenditure, one of the country's main growth engine.

Next year's budget draft, disapproved by the Socialists and center-right lawmakers, expects France's growth rate to be 1.8 percent on favorable business climate and expanding world demand. (1 euro = 1.186 U.S. dollar) Enditem