Ireland's budget deficit at the end of 2016 was revised up on Wednesday to 0.7% of gross domestic product from an estimate of 0.6%, still beating the government's target of a reduction to 0.9%.

Ireland, whose deficit ballooned into double figures in 2009, leading to a three-year international bailout, aims to cut the gap between spending and revenue to 0.4% of GDP this year as it moves towards its first balanced budget in a decade.

The minor revision was made after GDP growth for 2016 was revised to 5.1% from 5.2% last week, when the state's statistics office also began to phase in a new set of data to measure Ireland's open economy.

"Modified Gross National Income" - or "GNI*" - strips out the distorting impact of Ireland's status as a hub for major multinationals on the conventional measure for economic growth. It puts the size of the rapidly growing economy nearly one-third smaller at 189 billion euros.

That meant the budget deficit at the end of last year was even higher, at 1% of GNI, but still significantly lower than the previous year's 2.9% of GNI.

The new measure was introduced in response to GDP data for 2015, when growth was adjusted to 26% after a massive revision to capital asset stocks. That cut Ireland's debt-to-GDP below 80% from 94% at the stroke of a pen.

Ireland's debt as a percentage of GNI stood at 106% at the end of 2016 compared with 73% of GDP, last week's data showed. In a presentation to investors published on Tuesday, Ireland's debt agency said the "reality was somewhere in between." (Reuters)

Source: www.businressworld.ie