Czech finance ministry will amend budget, raising planned deficit due to Ukraine war

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech finance ministry will draft an amendment to the 2022 state budget, raising the planned 280 billion crown ($11.80 billion) deficit target due to the war in Ukraine, the ministry said on Tuesday on Twitter.

The ministry said it expected costs associated with taking in Ukrainian refugees - more than 330,000 have come to the country of 10.5 million - at around 50 billion crowns, and that it believed most of the spending would be compensated from European Union programmes.

The ministry did not specifically say how big an increase in the deficit it planned. The state budget is the largest part of the overall public sector, which the ministry forecast last month to show a deficit of 4.5% of gross domestic product this year.

($1 = 23.7320 Czech crowns)

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka)