According to an outline of the general government’s draft budget for the next two years, the Finance Ministry proposes to squeeze the public deficit to 2.49% of gross domestic product next year. It has not offered details on what specific measures will be taken in order to reach this goal.
The Finance Ministry has planned to reduce the Government’s debt by selling its minority stake in the telecom operator Slovak Telekom, estimated to be worth about €1 billion. “For the next year the Treasury counts on receiving from the privatisation of Slovak Telekom a sum worth 1.3% of gross domestic product”, reads the draft budget. According to the SME daily, the Economy Ministry is hurriedly amending the privatisation law so that the state can sell part of its shares of Slovak Telekom on the stock exchange. The foreign stockholder of the company, Deutsche Telekom, was promised that the process to sell the shares on the stock exchange would begin before summer.
