Official statistics: Social protection expenditures up 7.6 pct in 2016

Social protection expenditures increased 7.6 pct in 2016 from the year before to 111.822 bln lei, accounting for 14.7 pct of GDP, and social protection was mainly directed towards covering old age, sickness or health care risks, shows data released on Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). 

"Expenditure on social protection (administrative costs of social protection schemes included) amounted to 111,822 million lei, up 7.6 pct from the year before. The GDP share of this spending category was 14.7 pct, up 0.1 percentage points from 2015. Just like in the previous years (2006-2015), social protection was mainly directed towards covering old age, sickness or health care risks with 50.3 pct and 27.1 pct, respectively of the total such spending engaged for these purposes," the cited source said. 

Spending on social benefits (administrative costs and other expenses excluded) accounted for 14.4 pct of GDP, up 0.1 percentage points from 2015. 

Social protection receipts amounted to 116.136 bln lei, up 9.2 pct from the year before, and accounting for 15.2 pct of GDP (flash estimates), up 0.3 percentage points from 2015.