The Council for Budgetary Responsibility has calculated that Slovakia‘s public debt would overstep 55% of GDP this year and 57% of GDP in 2014 without the so called super-dividends. They are in fact dividends paid by companies in which the state has a stake, but their value is higher that of the normal ones that depend on the annual profit.
The Government has not specified yet which companies, will be asked to provide the money. Power distributor Zapadoslovenska Energetika, however, claims it will transfer some €300 million to the state budget this way and will take out a loan to cover its contribution. An estimate for the total value of these super-dividends reaches 0.6 percent of Slovakia’s GDP for the period 2014 to 2016. The calculations of the Council for Budgetary Responsibility show that the super-dividends will reduce the need of the state to issue bonds as early as this year.
