AFP - Spain's budget deficit hit 99.7 billion euros at the end of 2009, the equivalent of 9.49 percent of gross domestic product, the economy ministry said Wednesday, up from 2.81 percent in the previous year.

The government has estimated that the public deficit -- which reflects spending by the central and regional governments as well as the social welfare administration -- was equal to 11.4 percent of GDP in 2009.

Spain posted a public surplus of 2.2 percent as recently as 2007.

But the country has since undergone one of the most dramatic reversals in Europe in its public accounts as the government boosted spending to counter the worst recession in decades, which raised unemployment and lowered tax revenue.

Corporate tax receipts plunged 26.1 percent in 2009 while revenues from the sales tax dropped 30.1 percent last year, the economy ministry said.

Spain's rising debt burden has triggered concerns that it could follow in the footsteps of Greece, whose budget crisis has rattled financial markets and prompted the European Union to place its accounts under unprecedented scrutiny.

In January Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government unveiled a programme to save 50 billion euros over three years as part of its pledge to bring the public deficit under the 3.0-percent EU limit by 2013.

The government forecasts the public deficit will fall to 9.8 percent in 2010, 7.5 percent in 2011, 5.3 percent in 2012 and 3.0 percent in 2013.

In December, the Standard & Poor's agency lowered its credit rating outlook on Spain from "stable" to "negative," warning that the country faced a "prolonged" period of sluggish economic growth.

The Spanish economy, the fifth largest in Europe, has been mired in recession since the end of 2008 as the global financial crisis hastened a correction that was already underway in its once-buoyant property sector.