German public deficit increases in the first 3 quarters of 2013

The German public deficit increases by 5.1 billion euros in the first nine months of 2013, despite a moderate recovery of the Europe's largest economy, official data showed on Friday. Revenue of the German general government, including the central government, state governments, local governments and social security funds, rose by 2.5 percent to 867.7 billion euros, said German Federal Statistical Office. But the revenue increase was outpaced by the increase of expenditure, which was up by 3.0 percent to 896.4 billion euros, thus resulting in a deficit of 28.7 billion euros for the first three quarters of 2013. Federal Statistical Office said social security funds saw a deficit of nearly 3.9 billion euros, due to an increase of expenditure from health insurance, general pension and Federal Labour Agency. In contrast, in the first three quarters of last year, the social security funds reached a surplus of 5.9 billion euros. German government was in surplus last year for the first time since 2007. The surplus amounted to 0.2 percent of GDP. The deficit-to-GDP ratio was 0.8 percent in 2011, after a deficit ratio of 4.1 percent in 2010. German government aims at maintaining a balanced budget this year and in 2014, and has said that it would not borrow additional money from 2015, limiting the debt-to-GDP ratio to 79.5 percent in 2013, to 77 percent in 2014 and to 76 percent in 2015. The new grand coalition government also said that it planned to increase government spending by 23 billion euros by 2017 while rejected tax increases. "Government spending increases would affect German economy on medium term," said Simon Junker, an expert from Berlin-based German Institute for Economic Research. The institute forecasted that German economy would grow by 0.4 percent in 2013, and 1.6 percent in the next year, due to a strong private consumption, as well as a recovery of investment.