According to the preliminary data available for the execution of the State Budget for the ten months January - October 2012, the State Budget deficit amounted to 12.29 billion euros while compared to a target of 13.57 billion euros.

The primary deficit also beat its target, coming in at 1.17 billion euros against the projected 2.44 billion.

"Both the state budget deficit and primary deficit perform a significant improvement compared to the first ten months period of previous year, by 8.79 billion and 4.68 billion euros, respectively,» the Finance Ministry said in a statement. «Thus, state budget balance is reduced by 41.7 percent compared to the same period last year."

State budget revenues increased 1.4 percent against the first 10 months of last year to come in at 41.73 billion euros, which was 223 million euros above the target.

State Budget expenditures for the first ten months of 2012 also showed an improvement on the target that had been set, amounting to 54.02 billion euros, which was 904 million euros less than had been forecast.

Net interest payments amounted to 11.11 billion euros, loan disbursement fees to the EFSF amounted to 370 million euros.