Slovakia's deficit higher than expected

According to latest Eurostat data Slovakia's public finance deficit has been higher than expected by the Finance Ministry, standing at 2.97 percent of GDP last year instead of the 2.56 percent that had initially been forecast. Slovak officials say that it was caused by Eurostat's decision not to count some transactions. For example, Eurostat didn't include revenues from instalments of returnable financial help from state-run freight company ZSSK Cargo worth €117 million. "Eurostat decided to reclassify this instalment under the category that doesn't have an impact on state revenues", said Finance Minister Peter Kažimír, adding that this meant this transaction negatively influenced the deficit twice. Eurostat also didn't count revenues of the State Housing Development Fund (SFRB) worth almost €200 million. However, there was also some good news in Eurostat's report mainly in the field of tax collection, which improved again last year by almost half a billion euro in comparison to 2014. Additionally, Slovakia's public debt decreased by 1 percent year-on-year to 52.91 percent of GDP.