Romania ended 2021 with a budget deficit of 6.7 pct of GDP and we would have liked it to be 5 pct, but if so, we wouldn't have paid salaries and pensions, Finance minister Adrian Caciu said on Thursday at the Palace of Parliament."We managed to reduce the deficit for 2021. We're going to reduce the deficit in 2022 as well, but the fight against inflation is being conducted on several fronts. On the one hand, you reduce deficits and eliminate the risk of slippage. On the other hand, you have to act on the causes of inflation and the causes are the energy prices for which, next month, we come up with a series of solutions that will lead to stopping the increase in energy prices, if not their decrease," Caciu said.He added that the deficit could also be reduced by better revenue collection.Last year's budget deficit was set at 7.13 pct of GDP.The Minister of Finance participates on Thursday in the launching event of the four government programmes the institution is to implement in 2022, organized by the National Credit Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises (FNGCIMM).The four programmes: IMM Prod, Rural Invest, Garant Construct and Innovation, are meant to support the objectives assumed through the Government Programme 2021-2024, in order to finance the economy and facilitate lending for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, in partnership with the banking system and the associative forms of SMEs.