PARIS – France’s budget deficit for 2021 will stand at €220 billion (RM1.11 trillion), some €47 billion higher than previously estimated, Olivier Dussopt, public accounts minister, told AFP today.
The increase is “a result of supporting measures that we’re continuing to take to support the recovery” from the devastating effects that Covid-19 shutdowns wreaked on the eurozone’s second-largest economy, he said.
It is not yet clear how the revised numbers will affect the budget deficit when expressed as percentage of GDP, which was previously forecast to hit 9% this year, a postwar record. Public debt was previously forecast to reach 118% of GDP.
The Covid-19 pandemic is expected to cost the French state nearly half a trillion euros over three years – €158 billion in 2020, an expected €171 billion in 2021 and a forecast €96 billion in 2022, Dussopt said in April.
France has borrowed heavily to try to keep the economy afloat through three nationwide lockdowns, including money spent on supporting salaries of people furloughed and aid for companies struggling to stay afloat during the crisis. – AFP, May 29, 2021
