Pension system's gap reaches CZK 49 billion in 2012

Prague, Feb 18 (CTK) - The Czech state pension system's deficit continued to rise for the fourth consecutive year in 2012, reaching 49.4 billion crowns, Jana Buranova from the Czech Social Security Administration (CSSZ) told CTK Monday.

Last year, the CSSZ collected 323.3 billion crowns in social contributions within the pay-as-you-go pension system, but it spent 372.8 billion on pensions.

The gap between the system's revenues and spending rose by 10 billion crowns last year, compared to 2011 when it reached 39.5 billion crowns.

The gap in the pension system caused the whole social security system to end up with a deficit, though in the sickness benefits area the revenues from insurance (24.9 billion crowns) exceeded the spending on sickness benefits (19.4 billion) by 5.6 billion crowns.

In this area, the surplus almost doubled last year, compared with 3.2 billion in 2011.

Nevertheless, the pension account's rising deficit left the whole social security system with a deficit of 43.9 billion crowns last year, one-fifth higher than in 2011.

The CSSZ receives money for pensions from the state budget independently from how much money it collected in insurance contributions in the preceding period.