Greece’s primary budget surplus beats target

Greece’s central government registered a primary budget surplus of 3.04 billion euros in the first two months of the year, beating its target by 1.97 billion euros, helped by lower outlays and higher revenues.

The central government surplus excludes the budgets of social security organizations and local administrations and is different from the figure monitored by Greece’s eurozone and International Monetary Fund lenders, but indicates the state of the country’s finances.

The government’s target was for a primary budget surplus – which excludes debt-servicing costs – of 1.06 billion euros for the same period.

Tax revenues came in at 8.1 billion euros, 322 million euros above target, while outlays were almost a billion euros below target, Finance Ministry data showed on Friday.

[Reuters]