March 31 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's government said that it has adopted draft changes to the country's 2020 balanced budget, envisaging a deficit equivalent to 2.9% of gross domestic product (GDP), or 3.5 billion levs ($2 billion/1.8 billion euro), due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The government also decided to raise nearly fivefold the ceiling of new debt it can issue, to 10 billion levs from 2.2 billion levs initially, it said in a statement on Monday.
Budget revenue is expected to come in at 2.44 billion levs short of initial calculations due to lower income from taxes. The government also decided to include an additional 1 billion levs in spending for measures in support of employment into the budget.
The budget revision is pending approval from parliament.
Initially, budget revenue and expenses were both seen at 46.8 billion levs in 2020.
Bulgaria is currently in a state of emergency as cases of the novel coronavirus disease in the country totalled 379 on Tuesday.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)