German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck was quoted as saying on Friday that net new borrowing would fall to under 13 billion euros next year and the country would have a budget surplus no later than 2011.
The net borrowing figure would be 40 percent less than the previous target of 21.5 billion euros ($28.91 billion), Steinbrueck was quoted as telling Berliner Zeitung newspaper in a preview of an article to appear on Saturday. He added that he expected Germany would have a budget surplus "by 2011 at the latest if we don't have any new debts."
"This would be a historic achievement," Steinbrueck said. "Then we would be able to use at least a part of this surplus to finally begin to reduce our mountain of debt." Germany currently has around 900 billion euros of debt, the paper said. The government is expected to approve Steinbrueck's draft 2008 budget proposal when it meets next week.
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