France narrows 2017 budget gap to 67.8 bln euros

PARIS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- France saw an improvement in its finance in 2017 with a budget deficit of 67.8 billion euros (82.75 billion U.S. dollars), down by 1.3 billion euros from that of 2016, Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday.

Thanks to rising tax receipts and efforts to squeeze public spending, France narrowed the budget deficit to the lowest level since a decade, the minister said in a statement.

"The 2017 budget ... reflects compliance with the commitments made by the government in terms of expenditure control and deficit reduction," Darmanin said.

"This first effort of public accounts recovery will be continued in accordance with the 2018 budget law and the public finance program law adopted at the end of (last) year," he added.

After several broken promises to respect the European Union safe line of 3 percent, the French government targets to lower the budget gap to 2.9 percent in 2017 and 2.6 percent this year.

"The good results recorded on the budget balance thanks to the cautiousness of our revenue forecasts and our strategy of control of the public expenditure, reinforce the capacity of the government to reach this target," the minister said.

Final 2017 budget deficit figures will be released in March. Enditem