Portugal to speed up deficit reduction
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates has announced plans to delay some major public projects to speed up reducing the country's public deficit this year, local media reported Saturday.
"The government has decided to reduce the deficit this year to 7.3 percent of GDP," Socrates told Portuguese journalists late Friday after a meeting of eurozone leaders in Brussels.
Portugal, which is struggling to fend off comparisons to Greece, had previously said it would cut its public deficit from a record 9.4 percent of output last year to 8.3 percent in 2010. It expects to be under the EU limit of three percent by 2013.
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