Fiscal deficit in 2011 expected to fall to single digit, says President
09 Oct 2011, 2:55 PM
The government expects the fiscal deficit to have fallen to a single digit at the end of the year, below the previous forecast of 11 percent of GDP, President Mohamed Nasheed said in his weekly radio address on Friday.
“The budget deficit as a percentage of GDP or national productivity has been estimated for next year at [budget] meetings with ministers and heads of government offices,” he said. “From that estimate we know that government expenditure has been substantially reduced in a number of different areas. For this year, we forecast a budget deficit of 11 percent. We have noted now that it has been reduced by three or four points.”
The government hoped that the fiscal deficit would be below 10 or “a single digit figure” when it is calculated at the end of the year, he said.
The budget deficit, which stood at just 1.9 percent of the economy in 2004, expanded to 7.3 percent in 2006 and ballooned to 23.9 percent in 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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