NERV agrees to slower cutting of public deficits

NERV, the Czech Republic’s National Economic Council, said the government needs to curtail its cuts the public finance deficits. NERV members met to discuss the government’s consolidation strategy on Monday. “Based on data from renowned institutions, we counted on a 2-percent GDP growth in our strategy. Unfortunately, this growth is not coming so we are slowing our pace of cutting the deficit,” ČTK reported Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas saying at Monday’s meeting. The government’s current strategy estimates the public deficit at 2.9 percent of GDP in 2013. The Finance Ministry estimates the deficits for 2014 and 2015 at 2.7 and 2.4 percent of GDP, respectively, while the deficit for this year is expected to rise to 5 percent of GDP.