The Croatian parliament on Friday endorsed the revision of the 2013 state budget, which envisages a reduction of budget revenue from HRK 253.9 million to HRK 113.4 billion, and a cut of 874 million kuna to HRK 123.6 billion in budget expenditures.
The budget reshuffle was approved by 86 members of parliament, 29 voted against and one deputy abstained.
The government explained the budget revision, as an effort to scale down an initially projected economic growth of 1.8% to 0.7% for this year.
The cabinet of Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic ascribes the lowered projected growth to deceleration in the European Union's economic activity, notably in major Croatian trading partners in the EU bloc, as well as negative trends in the national economy such as the reduced volume of planned investments by the public sector.
The government insists that fiscal consolidation would go on despite the budget revision, as the budget deficit would go down from the previously planned 10.9 billion kuna to 10.2 billion kuna. Thus, the budget deficit is planned to be trimmed from 3.2% to 3% of GDP this year.
According to the budget revision, planned taxation revenues are put at HRK 66.2 billion, less by HRK 951 million than in the initial budget proposed for the year.
