Slovak FinMin sticks to 2.5pct/gdp deficit this yr

...adoption, Finance Minister Jan Pociatek told reporters on Tuesday.

Eurostat, the European Union's statistics service, told Slovakia in October to include state television and radio debts in public finance figures but left open the question of whether the much bigger losses of the National Highway Company should also be added.

The finance ministry has said even if added, the highway company's debt would not push the fiscal gap above the euro adoption threshold of 3 percent of GDP in the key year 2007.

"It looks like Eurostat will not tell us in the near future, so we have to wait until the spring notification. That's why we have to count that the national highway company will be included in public finances," Pociatek said.

"We still target the 2007 fiscal deficit at 2.5 percent of GDP," he added.

Slovakia is targetting euro adoption in 2009, and will have its application assessed by European authorities in the spring of 2008. (Reporting by Martin Dokoupil, editing by Alan Crosby)

Keywords: SLOVAKIA DEFICIT/FINMIN

[BRATISLAVA/Reuters/Finance.cz]