Following years of budget restraint, particularly in Greece, government deficits across the 19-country eurozone has fallen to its lowest level since before the most acute phase of the global financial crisis, official figures showed yesterday.
According to statistics agency Eurostat, the eurozone’s deficit, which represents the difference between revenue and expenditure, was equivalent to 1.4 percent of the region’s annual gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2016, down from 1.6 percent in the previous quarter. The latest drop was largely due to lower expenditure by governments.
The fourth quarter rate is the lowest since the first quarter of 2008, when it was also 1.4 percent — prior-year figures have been adjusted to account for new members to the eurozone since then, such as Slovakia and Lithuania.
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