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ATHENS, April 22 (Reuters) - Greece will aim to cut its budget deficit to 3.7 percent of GDP this year and shrink it below the European Union's ceiling in 2010, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday.
"The targets we have set to limit the deficit to 3.7 percent of GDP in 2009 and under 3 percent of GDP in 2010 remain valid," Finance Minister Yannis Papathanassiou said in a statement.
"We are determined to proceed with the necessary adjustments to ensure fiscal improvement within the timeframes to which we have committed," he said.
Earlier on Wednesday Eurostat said Greece's deficit in 2008 reached 5 percent of GDP. The government had projected last year's fiscal shortfall would be 3.7 percent.
The Greek economy is decelerating sharply after growth averaging four percent in recent years, and the country's central banker George Provopoulos said last week it may fall into its first recession this year since 1993.
The minister said there would be a clearer picture on the course of the budget by June, including the effects of recent measures including a public sector wage freeze and one-off taxes on higher-income earners.
"A few months ago many were forecasting that Greece would not manage to implement its borrowing plan and that it would be forced to seek help from the EU or the IMF. Already in the first quarter we succeeded in covering more than 80 percent of our annual borrowing programme," the minister said.
This, he said, ensures that the government can cope with any negative turn in the global economic situation. Greece has already borrowed more than 37 billion euros out of a targeted 43.7 billion total for this year.
"Today, many are forecasting that Greece will not manage to reduce its deficit. We will prove these projections wrong as well," he said. (Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; editing by Stephen Nisbet)