MADRID, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Spain met the 2016 deficit target requested by the European Union (EU), economic newspaper Expansion reported on Friday, citing sources from the government.
Spain's public deficit stood at 4.33 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) without including financial aid provided to the banks. Taking into account the financial aid, the country's public deficit would be at 4.54 percent, still below the requested 4.6 percent.
Without including this financial aid, the deficit of Spain's central administration stood at 2.52 percent of GDP in 2016, surpassing the deficit target established by the Spanish government itself, 2.2 percent.
The deficit of Spanish regions stood at 0.82 percent, slightly above the deficit target set by the government, 0.7 percent, and the deficit of the Social Security System stood at 1.62 percent of GDP.
On the other hand, local governments registered a surplus of 0.64 percent of GDP, balancing out all the previous deficits.
This is the first time since 2007 that Spain meets the EU deficit target.
Spanish Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said that in 2018 Spain's public deficit would fall below 3 percent and highlighted that the country had reduced its public deficit from 9.3 percent in 2011 to 4.3 percent in 2016.
In 2017 Spain must reduce its deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP according to the EU requirements.
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