Philippines to maintain 2009 budget deficit target

Published: 22 Jun 2009 19:29:41 PST

MANILA, June 23 - Philippine Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said on Tuesday that he was confident the government's 2009 budget deficit would be maintained at 250 billion pesos ($5.14 billion).

Teves was speaking after announcing that the government's budget deficit came in at 11.4 billion pesos in May from a surplus of 7.9 billion pesos in April.

The budget shortfall in May brought the year to date fiscal gap to 123.2 billion pesos.

The government expects this year's budget deficit to balloon to a record 250 billion pesos, or 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), as a slower economy thins tax collection.