Britain will aim to wipe out its budget deficit and achieve a surplus in the 2019/20 financial year, one year later than previously planned, chancellor George Osborne said today.

Osborne, delivering a post-election budget statement, said the budget was projected to show a surplus equivalent to 0.4 percent of gross domestic product in the 2019/20 financial year, slightly higher than previous expected.

In the 2018/19 financial year, the public accounts were now expected to show a deficit of 0.3 percent of GDP. A previous budget plan announced in March, before the election, showed a projected surplus of 0.2 percent of economic output for that year.