Victor Ponta said Monday that reducing VAT on food brought additional revenues in July and August to the state budget, according to the data provided by ANAF, but that he is concerned the drought and agriculture issues will affect Romania's economic growth by year-end.
"I spoke with the President of ANAF, tomorrow (Tuesday) I will have the official figures for August. I can only confirm with great joy that although we applied that decrease to 9% in June for food and tourism, what would have originally meant that from 24% to 9% we would lose some money, in reality it happened what we said and what many other specialists said. Namely, we had higher receipts, "said Ponta, according to Mediafax .
However, the Prime Minister expressed his concern of a possible slowdown in growth in the fourth quarter, caused by drought. In those circumstances, Victor Ponta claims that the government will wait for official details before deciding whether they could advance other taxes eliminations from the Fiscal Code, as proposed by the head of the Senate, Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
"Unfortunately, in the 4th quarter I fear that the drought and agriculture issues will be reflected in the economic growth," said Ponta, who attended the Monday's meeting of the Social Democratic group in the Chamber of Deputies.