Germany aims for a balanced budget in 2014, aiming to reduce its current public sector shortfall faster than previously planned, newspaper Handelsblatt reported today, citing sources from the federal states.
The paper said Germany now targeted a budget deficit rate this year of 1.5 per cent to be cut by half a percentage point every year until 2014. It said the federal government, states and municipalities had agreed on this level.
The finance ministry has so far said the deficit - buoyed by a faster-than-expected recovery in Europe's largest economy - would likely fall to below 2 per cent of gross domestic product this year.
However, it still expected a budget deficit in 2015. The figure stood at 3.3 per cent in 2010.
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Reuters