Public finances heading towards long-term sustainability

Slovakia's public finances are heading towards long-term sustainability, the Budgetary Responsibility Council states in its latest Report on Long-term Sustainability of Public Finance for 2016. The long-term sustainability indicator for 2016 posted for the first time a negative figure of minus 0.1 percent of GDP. However, the Government should not ease its targets and its counting on potential risks. These include the ageing of the population and growing expenditures in the health sector, reads the council's report. When macroeconomic scenarios, demographic developments and current policies are taken into consideration, the ceiling level of the constitutional debt limit, i.e. 50 percent of GDP, should not be exceeded until 2066, explained the Budgetary Responsibility Councils president Ivan Šramko on Wednesday.