Tax inflows were 6.2 percent higher than a year earlier amid "better conditions on the labour market, better performance of companies and higher consumption", the finance ministry said in a statement on Friday.

It also said that spending for interest rates on sovereign debt was 7.7 percent lower than a year earlier, mainly due to an exchange of some of its older bonds with high interest rates with newly issued bonds with lower interest.

The government reported a 109 million euro budget deficit for January-July in 2017.

The ministry has targeted a budget surplus of 0.4 percent of gross domestic product this year versus a surplus of 0.03 percent in 2017, boosted by robust economic growth which reached 3.8 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2018.