Notification of government deficit and debt - 2019 (Second notification, data notified by Eurostat)

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 1 October 2020 were confirmed. In 2019, the balance of the Czech government sector reached a surplus CZK 15.3 billion and the government debt CZK 1 738.5 billion.

Notification table of government deficit and debt, the Czech Republic, 2016–2019

	Unit	Year
	Unit	2016	2017	2018	2019
Net borrowing/lending of general government	CZK mil.	34 143	76 733	49 382	15 267
General government consolidated gross debt	CZK mil.	1 754 737	1 749 677	1 734 602	1 738 453
Gross domestic product (GDP), current prices	CZK mil.	4 796 873	5 110 743	5 408 766	5 748 668
Net borrowing/lending of general government as % of GDP	%	0.71	1.50	0.91	0.27
General government consolidated gross debt as % of GDP	%	36.58	34.24	32.07	30.24

Due to technical reasons, GDP in 2018 and 2019 published in the Press release on 1 October was incorrect. Consequently, the government debt ratio in 2018 and 2019 was affected. We apologize for the mistake.

Eurostat has no reservations on the data on the government deficit and debt of the Czech Republic.

Data for all Member States of the EU will be released on the website of Eurostat on 22 October 2020 at 11 a.m.

Notes:
Notification of government deficit and debt is compiled always for the past four years and submitted to the European Commission by each Member State of the European Union always at the end of March and September each year, including a projection for the current year. The projection for the current year is compiled and published by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic. Quantification of fiscal indicators is based on the ESA 2010 methodology. Pursuant to the Maastricht criteria, the government deficit must not exceed 3% of the GDP and the level of the accumulated government debt must not exceed 60% of the GDP.

Government surplus/deficit is represented by the item B.9 “net borrowing (−) or net lending (+)” in the system of national accounts. The indicator 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) 734 352 286, 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 2021