LISBON: Portugal’s public sector budget deficit in the first half of this year was equivalent to 4.9% of gross domestic product, according to an estimate released by parliament’s Technical Budget Support Unit (UTAO), which said that the out-turn “presents risks” to the possibility of achieving the government’s full-year target of 2.7%.
In its note on the budget execution to July, which Lusa has seen, the UTAO estimates that in national accounting terms – which are what count to meet European Union commitments, “the public sector deficit was situated between 4.4% and 5.4% of GDP in the first half of 2015” with the central estimate of 4.9%.
It notes that the figure includes three extraordinary operations in the first quarter that widened the deficit by a cumulative 0.2 of a percentage point. Without these, it states, the deficit would have been between 4.2% and 5.2%.
According to the UTAO’s calculations, the deficit was 1.4 points smaller than in the same period of 2014, but it “appears to have exceeded the objective established for the year as a whole, putting at risk its achievement”.
