WARSAW. AUGUST 17. INTERFAX CENTRAL EUROPE - Poland's 2007 budget deficit will amount to some PLN 23 bln, versus the planned PLN 30 bln, Finance Minister Zyta Gilowska said Friday to little surprise from economists.
"The minister's intuition tells her it will be PLN 23 bln; ours told us it would be PLN 20-25 bln," (29 EUR, 3,95%) Bank senior economist Bartosz Pawlowski said. "No surprises there. Uou have a budget surplus after seven months, it is hard to spend PLN 30 bln."
The budget for 2007 provides for deficit of PLN 30 bln. Last year, the deficit came in at PLN 25.1 bln, versus the plan of PLN 30.5 bln. Thanks to fast economic expansion, budget revenues have been strong, while the government has not exceeded expenditure plans.
"My intuition tells me that [the deficit] will amount to roughly PLN 23 bln," Gilowska said, according to a report by the Polish Press Agency.
After July, the budget surplus amounted to PLN 615.6 mln, as revenues, at PLN 137.71 bln, amounted to 60.1% of the planned yearly (53 EUR, 2,18%), and expenditures of PLN 137.01 bln were equivalent to nearly 53% of the annual plan.
The relatively solid fiscal performance of Poland will, however, have little impact on investor perceptions, as the global rise in risk aversion, amid a credit crunch spreading from the US subprime mortgage segment to the wider financial markets, dominates the agenda, Pawlowski said.
"I don't think it will be noticed much," he said. "There are things happening now in the world that make it hard to be preoccupied with Ms Gilowska."