As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Finance Minister Maric stated that the rebalance and domestic economic growth is higher than expected, that he and his team are busy finalising the macroeconomic projections and that they’re going over 8 percent, which is a very good result and we can be satisfied with it.
”The Republic of Croatia will reach pre-recession levels of GDP in two years, which is a fantastic result. That rate had its repercussions, revenues will be slightly adjusted for the better, but that said, we also have not the best news, as the expenditure side of the budget is growing slightly more than the revenue.
We had a slightly higher indexation of pensions, primarily due to inflation, but as a government, we’re glad that pensions are rising. We also have a situation with measures to preserve jobs, they were envisaged only for the first couple of months, but for some sectors they’re still valid. As for salaries, we knew from the beginning that we had insufficient funds, but now we’re securing them. At the level of the general government, the deficit is slightly higher,” explained Finance Minister Maric.
On the debt to wholesalers, he said that healthcare is in the first budget, so now, given the situation with coronavirus, this enfeebled sector inevitably needs a quality reform on the expenditure side.
”Revenues provide their contribution, and this year, we’ll allocate over 9 billion kuna to keep the payment deadlines at 180 days for hospitals and 120 days for pharmacies. If we look at wholesalers, at the moment, with a small deviation, the debt of hospitals stands at 2.8 billion kuna, and pharmacies some 400 million kuna. To compare, over 9 billion has been paid off so far and will be paid by the end of the year to meet those deadlines. That’s when we’ll need to come to increasing expenditures,” he added.
When asked how much the rebalance for the healthcare system will amount to, Maric said quite frankly – one billion and six million kuna.
“You’ll get to hear about the deficit on Thursday, and then we’ll have to dose it a little, it will certainly be over 4 percent but it won’t reach some unsustainable level,” he said.
“It brings us back to the trajectory we had before the pandemic. We had a continuous reduction of public debt for four years, then we had a jump due to coronavirus, and this year alone we’ve been returning to the path of reducing public debt,” he said.
”l’ll finish up with a bit of good news – public debt will decline at the end of the year. It’s something we want to emphasise, it’s a clear message to everyone, you know yourself, fiscal policy has been put into the function of preserving health and life and jobs from day one,” said Finance Minister Maric.
”The inflation projection is still below 3 per ent. Despite the acceleration, it’s stayed at that level, but we’re still taking it very seriously, not only because of the Maastricht criteria, but also because of people,” concluded the Minister of Finance.
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