Eurostat may revise Greece’s 2009 deficit
EU statistics agency Eurostat may revise upwards Greece’s 2009 budget deficit but this will not significantly impact this year’s fiscal gap, a senior official at Greece’s finance ministry said yesterday.
“Even if there is a significant revision for 2009, the impact on the 2010 deficit will be very small,” the official, who did not want to be named, said.
Greece expects to slash this year’s budget deficit to 7.8 per cent of GDP from 13.8 per cent in 2009, based on its draft 2011 budget unveiled on Monday. Next year it wants to shrink the budget hole to seven per cent, below a 7.6 per cent target under an IMF/EU bailout plan.
Eurostat said in April it might revise upwards Greece’s 2009 deficit by up to 0.5 percentage points of GDP, and public debt by between five and seven percentage points, to account for uncertainties in the reported statistical data.