Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera will today present the Government’s Budget for 2019 under the theme ‘Empowering the People, Nurturing the Poor,’ which will set critical policies and priorities for an election year. The Finance Ministry has outlined ambitious targets for the delayed Budget 2019 with plans to increase public revenue to 17% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and shrink the budget deficit to 4.5% of GDP. This was a change from the deficit of 3.5% announced in January. The deficit in 2018 was 5.3%, which was higher than the 4.6% it targeted in Budget 2018. -Daily Ft

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