January-March primary budget surplus beats target
Finance Ministry officials want to avoid any more promises on provisioning, as the six-monthly visit of the eurozone institutions is expected in March as part of the simple post-program supervision, while a series of rating agency assessments are imminent.
Greece’s central government recorded a better-than-targeted primary budget surplus of 3.07 billion euros ($3.36 billion) in January to March thanks to higher revenues, Finance Ministry data showed on Wednesday.
The government had targeted a primary budget surplus – which excludes debt-servicing costs, social security and local administration budgets – of 28 million euros for the first three months of the year.
Budget revenues came in at 16.83 billion euros in the same period, outperforming the target by 2.26 billion euros, according to the official data.
Spending reached 16.6 billion euros, 545 million euros less than the government’s target. [Reuters]
