The Government adopted the proposed changes to the 2020 budget, which is being amended for a second time, with the deficit projected to spike to nearly a billion EUR. It now provides that the GDP contraction will amount to 4.4 percent and the inflation rate will be at 1 percent, said Finance Minister Fatmir Besimi.

Besimi said that revenue from taxes and other sources was at 69.1 percent in September, which is nearly 5 percent less than it was last year. Meanwhile, spending was implemented with 70.5 percent, or 10.7 percent above the level it was this time in 2019. This left the deficit for the first nine months of the year at 573 million EUR – or 5.3 percent of the GDP. By the end of the year, the deficit will increase to 8.4 percent of GDP, or just below a billion EUR.