Riga, January 22, LETA. In the third quarter of last year, the general government budget deficit relative to gross domestic product (GDP) in Latvia was lower than the EU average, according to the latest data published on Thursday by the EU statistics department "Eurostat" for 26 EU countries.
According to these data, Latvia's budget deficit in July-September was 3% of GDP.
In the third quarter, a deficit was registered in 22 EU countries, but the largest was in Romania (-7.3% of GDP), followed by Poland (-5.8%), Belgium (-5.7%), France (-5.4%), and Austria (-4.4%). In Lithuania, the deficit was 1.8%, and in Estonia, it was 1.2%.
A budget surplus during this period was recorded in Denmark (+3.3% of GDP), Greece (+3.2%), Cyprus (+2.4%), and Ireland (+1.2%).
Compared to the second quarter, the state budget balance deteriorated the most in Hungary (-2.6 percentage points), Latvia (-2 p.p.), Portugal (-1.6 p.p.), and Germany (-0.8 p.p.).
The budget balance improved significantly in Poland (+2.6 p.p.), Bulgaria, and Malta (both +2.2 p.p.), Lithuania (+1.2 p.p.), and Romania (+1.1 p.p.). In Estonia, the budget balance improved by 0.5 p.p..
In the third quarter, the seasonally adjusted general government deficit in both the EU and the eurozone was 3.2% of GDP. In the second quarter, it was 2.9% and 2.8% of GDP in the EU and eurozone, respectively.
