The UK logged its smallest budget deficit for any February since 2008.
The Office for National Statistics reported that net borrowing excluding public sector banks was £6.9 billion ($10.2 billion) compared with £10.4 billion a year ago.
Experts polled by a financial news provider projected that the indicator should have fallen to £8.4 billion. Net borrowings contracted £3.5 billion annually.
“Extra borrowings needed for the current account balance mean that in the year-to-date period, public sector net borrowing totaled £81.8 billion, a decrease of £8.8 billion, or 9.7 percent compared with the same period in 2013/14,” the ONS statement reads.
In the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the government spending equaled £626.3 billion whereas income-tax receipts jumped to a record £153.9 billion. In late February, the public debt excluding state-owned banks approached £1 trillion 468.5 billion which accounts for 79.6% of GDP. The public debt is £83.6 billion up as compared to the same period last year.
