Based on preliminary data and estimates the balance of the Consolidated Fiscal Programme (CFP) on a cash basis for the first eight months of 2016 is expected to be positive, amounting to BGN 3,285.3 million(3.7% of forecast GDP), the Finance Ministry has said. For comparison, a CFP surplus of BGN 622.0 million (0.7% of GDP) was reported in the same period of 2015, which means that, as a relative share of GDP, the budget stance has improved by 3.0 percentage points.
The considerable excess of revenues over expenditures under CFP for August is still due, on the one hand, to the positive revenue development and, on the other hand, to the relatively low performance of expenditures. The revenue improvement is driven by the higher tax and non-tax revenues under the national budget and the reimbursement by the European Commission of certified expenditure under the EU Operational Programmes and Funds for the previous programming period 2007-2013 (expenditures actually made at the end of 2015) and the received advance payments under the Operational Programmes for the new programming period 2014-2020 in terms of grants. The current excess of revenues over expenditures under EU funds accounts has considerable effect on CFP balance, with the surplus under EU funds being 1.5% of the forecast GDP. The good revenue performance parameters and the absence of a serious pressure by expenditure so far give grounds to expect a higher than planned budget deficit improvement on an annual basis.
Key CFP parameters on the basis of preliminary data and estimates:
As of end-August 2016, CFP revenues and grants are expected to be BGN 23,031.9 million (69.8% of the annual estimate), registering a growth by BGN 1,540.9 million as against the same period of 2015. The growth as compared to the previous year is due to the higher tax and non-tax revenues which increased by BGN 1,722.4 million, while the receipts in terms of grants decreased by BGN 181.4 million. The performance of receipts from grants as compared to the annual plan stands at 87.0%.
The Consolidated Fiscal Programme expenditures, including the contribution of the Republic of Bulgaria to the EU budget, as of August 2016 are expected to amount to BGN 19,746.6 million, which is 56.7% of the annual estimates. The expenditures for the same period of the previous year are to the amount of BGN 20,868.9 million.
The part of Bulgaria's contribution to the EU budget, as paid from the central budget as of August 2016, amounts to BGN 536.4 million, which complies with the existing legislation in the area of EU own resources, Council Decision 2007/436/EC, Euratom on the system of the Communities' own resources and Council Regulation No 1150/2000, as amended by Regulation No 2018/2004, Regulation No 105/2009 and Regulation No 1377/2014, implementing Decision 2007/436/EC.
The statistical data and the Information Bulletin on the execution of the state budget and the key indicators of the Consolidated Fiscal Programme based on data from the monthly reports on the cash performance of the budgets of the first-level spending units will be published on the website of the Ministry of Finance at the end of September 2016.
