The revenues in the Bulgarian State budget continue the January trend of going down, Deputy Finance Minister, Ana Mihaylova, said Wednesday.

Mihaylova spoke in an interview for the TV channel Nova Televizia, but warned that the official data is still to be released by the Finance Ministry.

The Deputy Finance Minister pointed out this trend is due to the continuing effects of the economic crisis and the recovery is expected to begin in the second half of 2010. She reminded the January revenues were BGN 1,7 B while the budget deficit stood at BGN 500 M.

Mihaylova further explained all measures to up revenues are applied accordingly and there is an increase in their collection, but the crisis is influencing the lower amounts, adding the budget must go according to plan and the situation requires limited expenses.

Economic expert, Georgi Angelov, commented during the same interview that the beginning of the year is in general a hard time to increase the revenues in the budget.

Just one day earlier, the National Statistical Institute published preliminary data showing Bulgaria’s export increased by 13,1% in January 2010 year-on-year, prompting Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Simeon Djankov to comment this was the first sign the Bulgarian economy has started to recover.