The figure does not include the debt of the National Highway Company, Palko said. Eurostat, the EU’s statistics body, is due to rule whether to include the company in public finances. The government has said its potential inclusion would not add more than 0.2 percentage point to the budget gap and the country should thus meet the 3% limit for euro adoption planned for next year. “Preliminary data show that the deficit was below 2.5% (of GDP),” Palko told journalists in parliament. “We are now waiting to complete data from municipalities,” he said, adding the full public finance balance should be available in the second half of February. 2007 was the key year to assess Slovakia’s fiscal condition for its application to join the euro zone in 2009. Last year’s deficit fell from 3.7% of GDP recorded in 2006. The government of leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico is benefiting from record high economic growth, which helped to boost state revenues last year and allowed him to proceed with welfare policies while cutting the fiscal gap. Fico plans to reduce the fiscal deficit to 2.3% of GDP this year. (finance.cz)
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