PARIS, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- France has decided to lower its budget deficit target by one percentage point to 2.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018, based on improvement of economic activities, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday.
The government will work to trim public spending to 16 billion euros (19.19 billion U.S. dollars) next year, down from the original target of 20 billion euros (23.8 billion dollars) revealed in July.
"This is a little better than what we had given to the lawmakers in the first edition of the 2018 budget because growth is slightly better," Le Maire told state-run France 2 television.
The improvements "allow us to get out of this level of excessive expenditure" and help bolster France's political weight in Europe, he said.
The French minister predicted that the budget deficit for 2017 would be at 2.9 percent, down from a previous forecast of 3 percent.
