German budget surplus declines to 45.2 bln euros in 2019

Source: Xinhua | 2020-04-04

Germany's budget surplus declined to 45.2 billion euros (48.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Friday.

According to Destatis, all government levels recorded a positive net lending balance. The federal government recorded a surplus of 14.8 billion euros while the states even recorded a surplus of 16.6 billion euros.

However, Germany's total budget surplus declined by 8.5 billion euros compared to 2018. While total government expenditures had gone up by 4.8 percent, revenues had increased by 4.1 percent, Destatis noted.

After 45 years of accumulating new debt, Germany's governmental expenditures stopped exceeding revenues in 2014. Since then, no new debts have been incurred in line with the concept of a balanced financial budget which is referred to as black zero policy.

Last week, however, the German government applied an exception to the rule. In order to finance the economic aid package in the coronavirus crisis, the parliament passed a supplementary budget that allowed new debts of 156 billion euros. (1 euro = 1.08 U.S. dollars)