VILNIUS — Defying earlier predictions by analysts and economists, Lithuania has collected 0.9 percent more than its projected budget revenue so far this year, the Finance Ministry reported.

Despite raised taxes and other austerity measures though, the economic crisis has forced revenues down 23.3 percent year on year.

The Finance Ministry said over the first nine months of 2009 budget revenue was 11.3 billion litai (€3.27 billion), 0.9 percent above projected revenues.

This year the government has been harshly criticized for its decision to up value-added tax two times this year and remove many exemptions for various sectors, but most revenue — 5.28 billion litai (€1.52 billion) in total — was collected from VAT in this year’s budget.

So far this year revenues of the state budget, including the assistance funds of the European Union and other foreign countries, totaled 15.83 billion litai (€4.5 billion).

In September, the state budget received 1.68 billion litas instead of the expected 1.63 billion litai — a 3 percent increase.

From all sources, the government is expecting to collect 20.814 billion litai in total by the end of 2009.