LISBON: Portugal yesterday laid out savings designed to strip €1.4bn from its budget in the latest step to trim its public deficit. The new measures, adopted as part of Lisbon’s 2015 budget, come as the country battles to reduce its budget deficit to 2.5 percent of economic output.
A spokesman for Finance Minister Maria Luis Albuquerque said most of the savings would come from cutting government costs “without demanding more sacrifices” from ordinary people. Portugal, still struggling to overcome its debt crisis, recession and public anger at tough austerity measures, posted a public deficit of 4.9 percent of output last year. That marked a huge reduction from 6.4 percent in 2012. But despite this marked progress, the public debt of accumulated past deficits rose to 129 percent of output last year, up from 124.1 percent in 2012. Portugal was forced to seek a bailout in 2011 after decades of ballooning wages and state spending had led to a massive build-up of public debt. AFP
