Elsewhere on day 15 of the Games, China's world number one Zhang Yining won back-to-back table tennis golds, after defeating team-mate Wang Nan to hand the hosts a clean sweep of the medals in the women's singles.
"There is a collective agreement around the Cabinet table that we have to deal with the deficit, that we have to continue the action necessary to get the nation's finances backon the right track, " he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.