Notification of government deficit and debt - 2018

Following the regular consultations between Eurostat and the Czech Statistical Office, the data on government balance and government debt as published in the Press release on the 2 October 2019 were confirmed. In 2018, the balance of the Czech government sector reached a surplus CZK 58.4 billion which corresponds to 1.10 percent of GDP. At the end of 2018, the government debt ratio stood at 32.55 percent of GDP.

Notification table of government deficit and debt, the Czech Republic, 2015–2018

	Unit	Year
	Unit	2015	2016	2017	2018
Net borrowing/lending of general government	CZK mil.	−28 260	34 274	78 765	58 396
General government consolidated gross debt	CZK mil.	1 836 255	1 754 883	1 749 532	1 734 720
Gross domestic product (GDP), current prices	CZK mil.	4 595 783	4 767 990	5 047 267	5 328 738
Net borrowing/lending of general government as % of the GDP	%	−0.61	0.72	1.56	1.10
General government consolidated gross debt as % of the GDP	%	39.96	36.81	34.66	32.55

At the same time, Eurostat raised no objections against the fiscal indicators compiled by the Czech Statistical Office.

Data for all EU member states were published on the Eurostat web site on 21 October 2019 at 11:00 a.m.

Notes:
Notification of government deficit and debt is compiled for past four years and submitted to the European Commission by each Member State of the EU at the end of March and September each year under the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, including a projection for the current year. Pursuant to the Maastricht Treaty, the reference value for fiscal indicators of deficit is set at the level of 3 percent of GDP and for debt at the level of 60 percent of GDP. The projection of government deficit and debt for the current year is prepared by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic.

Government surplus/deficit is represented by the item B.9 “net borrowing (−) or net lending (+)” in the system of national accounts. It refers to the ability of the general government sector in the given year to finance other sectors of the economy (+) or the need of the general government sector to be financed (−) by other sectors.

The government debt consists of consolidated liabilities of the general government sector in the form of currency and deposits, issued debt securities, and received loans. In case of foreign exchange debt instruments hedged against currency risk, value in CZK is obtained by means of a contractual exchange rate.

Responsible head at the CZSO: Petr Musil, Ph.D., Director of Government and Financial Accounts Department, phone: (+420) 274 052 308, e-mail: petr.musil@czso.cz
Contact person: Jaroslav Kahoun, Head of Government Accounts Unit, phone: (+420) 274 054 232, e-mail: jaroslav.kahoun@czso.cz
Next News Release will be published on: 1 April 2020

This press release was not edited for language.