OREANDA-NEWS. January 31, 2011. The deficit of Moldova's national public budget amounted to 1.778 billion lei (over 100 million euros) in late 2010, much below the 3.596-billion-lei limit agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The deficit target was decreased after a visit to Chisinau by an IMF mission. The diminution was from 4.474 billion lei as the Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policies provided for, to 3.596 billion lei. The forecast on the size of the deficit against the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was cut down from 7 to 5.4 per cent.

In 2010, the state budget deficit was 1,621.9 million lei, the one of the state social insurance budget was 213.3 million lei. At the same time, the budget of the administrative and territorial units had a surplus of 5.2 million lei.

The national public budget revenues increased by 2.4 per cent in 2010, while the spending was by 5.7 per cent lower than the planned level. This essentially contributed to reducing the budget deficit.

Although the Finance Ministry, which presented a brief report on the budget's fulfillment on 27 January, did not announce the deficit's ratio against the GDP, Finance Minister Veaceslav Negruta has recently said that he expects a deficit of 2.5-2.6 per cent against the Gross Domestic Product. Negruta also believes that the GDP will stand at 70.2 billion lei.