On Friday, in the city of Horta, the Vice-President of the Regional Government of Azores, assured that the implementation of the 2006 budget "exceeded expectations."

Speaking at Question-time period in the Azores Parliament, Sérgio Ávila said that " rigour and and budgetary equilibrium were attained during 2006" and added that this contributed to the "consolidation of the regional public finances."

The Vice-President also said that this is the second consecutive year  in which the Region succeeded in insuring that "revenues were higher than expenses" and he presented, for the first time, a "consolidated account for the entire public services sector.

Sérgio Ávila informed that in 2006 there was also a reduction of 0.9% in the direct debt and -50.6% in the indirect debt when compared to last year while paid and unpaid expenses also decreased  significantly, namely, 47.7%.

The Vice-President highlighted the fact that in this period revenues exceeded expenses in 35.9 million euros and that revenues generated by the Region financed all expenses related to the functioning of public administration and contributed with 87.3 million euros to the financing of the governmental Investment Plan.
Thus, he added. as a result of a "policy of contention and rigour", the Regional Government also managed to save, during the year of 2006, around 13.4 million euros in ongoing administrative expenses.

According to Sérgio Ávila, the budgetary policy pursued by the Government of the Azores " has progressively freed more resources for public investment by diminishing administrative expenses."

The Vice-President said that the accounts for the year 2006 show that the Regional Government "avoided excessive spending", thus reinforcing current account budgetary contention policies, and that the government employed "rigour and prudence" in the implementation of the budget and that it  demonstrated the "capacity to judiciously execute the  proposed policy programmes."