VIENNA, April 26 (Reuters) - Austria on Wednesday
adjusted its planned budget figures to show a deficit of 3.2% of
economic output this year, the same as last year and a level
that it hopes to cut in half next year.
Finance Minister Magnus Brunner of Chancellor Karl
Nehammer's conservatives issued a statement with the new
figures, which showed adjustments of up to 0.3 percentage points
for this year and next year from those in his last annual budget
issued in October.
"My goal is for Austria's deficit to be significantly less
than 3% of GDP (gross domestic product) as of 2024," Brunner
said in the statement. "We want to halve the deficit in order to
put Austria on a sustainable budget path in the medium term."
Brunner's budget figures issued in October had shown a
slightly smaller deficit of 2.9% for this year. The latest
figures show the deficit halving to 1.6% in 2024, slightly less
than the 1.9% predicted in October.
Austria's current parliament ends in autumn 2024.
That would bring Austria well within the European Union's 3%
cap on budget deficits, which is currently suspended. Austria's
conservative-led government advocates staying within that limit
outside of crises that justify greater spending such as the
COVID-19 pandemic when it, too, went well beyond that cap.
The statement also showed slight upward adjustments to
Austria's planned debt-to-GDP ratio, to 77% this year from a
previously announced 76.7%, and 75.1% next year from 74.8%
announced in October.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy and Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich;
Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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