BERLIN, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Public budgets in Germany recorded a deficit of around 189.2 billion euros (224.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Wednesday.
"This result shows clearly the consequences of the coronavirus crisis for the public budgets," Destatis noted.
It was the first deficit since 2013 and the highest since Germany's reunification in1990, according to the provisional results by Destatis. In 2019, Germany still recorded a financial surplus of 45.2 billion euros.
Driven by COVID-19 measures, governmental spending in Germany last year increased by 12.1 percent year-on-year while total fiscal revenues decreased by 3.5 percent, according to Destatis.
According to Destatis, around 17.8 billion euros were paid to small businesses and self-employed as COVID-19 aid and around 13 billion euros were allocated to the national health fund from which the country's health insurers receive financing.
The decrease in revenues was mainly due to lower revenues from taxes and tax-like payments. Destatis noted that the German government made up for this revenue deficit by taking on additional debt. (1 euro= 1.19 U.S. dollars) Enditem
