BRATISLAVA, June 28, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovak Finance Minister Ivan Miklos opines that the government has managed to put out the fire in public finances and their rescue and now stabilization, development and growth should follow. The minister said this at the press meeting dedicated to the assessment of his first year in office. “I would call this first year a year of fire fighting and rescuing. The year to come should be a year of stabilization,” he said. He thinks that the government as well as the Finance Ministry will from now on mostly see the introduction of the most important measures that should contribute to growth and development in the coming years and which people could begin to feel.
The minister has repeated that a stop to wasting of public funds, coping with the catastrophic situation in informatization, unprepared budget and a “messed up” budget for 2010 were the most important issues in his first year in office. Miklos said that the budget was full of holes and errors that needed to be repaired and that resulted in an increase in last year’s general government deficit to almost 8 percent of GDP.
Miklos also spoke highly about the adopted austerity measures. The Finance Ministry’s office alone released more than fifty employees, while some hundreds more were laid off in organizations subordinated to the ministry, especially the customs administration. Miklos spoke highly of the successful issuance of euro bonds under advantageous interest rate terms which he opines proved correctness of the ministry’s steps. Miklos also praised his activities in Brussels where the change to the distribution key in the new European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was pushed through and a negative stance on the Greek loan was defended. “It has not been an easy year but we have set off on the right path,” said Miklos.
The Finance Ministry plans to implement a number of important measures focused on consolidation of public finances this year. The measures will emerge from discussions within preparation of the state budget. In addition to that, a tax and payroll levy reform and measures within the Cabinet project of building a knowledge-based economy Minerva 2.0 should be put into practice. Preparations of unification of tax, duty and payroll levies collection are progressing, along with steps to eliminate tax evasions and boosting transparency of allocation of state subsidies.
According to the state budget law adopted by parliament, the state budget should have EUR 13.148 billion in revenues and EUR 16.958 billion expenses in 2011. The budget deficit is expected to be EUR 3.81 billion. The deficit of the general government as a whole, considering all public institutions, not only the state, should be 4.9 percent of GDP. The government plans to squeeze the deficit bellow 3 percent of GDP in 2013.
SITA