ON 22 September, the Croatian government adopted economic and fiscal policy guidelines for the 2010-2012 period, which will serve as a basis for drafting the 2010 budget. The guidelines project economic growth in 2010 at between zero and 0.5%, with an inflation rate of around 3%. GDP growth is expected to reach 3% in 2011 and 3.5% in 2012. Next year, budget revenues are expected to increase 1.7% to around 113 billion Croatian kuna, while expenditures should be 151.7 million kuna lower than in 2009. In that way, the central government deficit would be 2.1% of GDP, whereas the consolidated government deficit would be 2.3%, Finance Minister Ivan Suker said. Suker added that interest expenditures would be one billion kuna higher than this year and that around 600 million kuna would be used to bring the pensions of old and new pensioners into alignment. He added that 87.2% of the budget, or around 99.2 billion kuna, would be used for the payment of salaries, pensions, welfare benefits and other entitlements.