Finance Ministry to ease austerity, stimulate growth

The Czech Finance Ministry will temporarily ease austerity measures; instead, it will use government spending to stimulate economic growth, the news agency ČTK reported on Friday quoting the ministry’s fiscal outlook. The ministry expects this year’s deficit of Czech public finances to drop to 2.8 percent of GDP from 4.4 percent in 2012; in the following years, the deficit should remain at similar levels. The ministry therefore believes it will be able to use government spending to stimulate economic growth. According to the latest predictions, the Czech economy should stagnate this year, and grown by around 1.2 percent of GDP in 2014.

Author: Jan Richter