Budget deficit narrows to P2.45 billion in Aug

THE government posted a narrow budget deficit in August this year as revenue collections grew faster than state spending, according to preliminary government data.

Documents obtained on Monday showed that last month’s P2.45-billion deficit was lower than July’s P75.29-billion shortfall and August 2018’s P2.58-billion shortfall.

Government revenues rose by 8.9 percent to P279.77 billion in August from P256.87 billion last year, while expenditures grew by 8.7 percent to P282.23 billion from P259.46 billion.
Compared to a month earlier, revenues grew by 9.2 percent and expenditures rose by 3.4 percent.

August’s lower shortfall dragged the year-to-date deficit to P120.40 billion, 57.3 percent narrower than the P282.01 billion posted in the first eight months of last year.

For August alone, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) accounted for the bulk of revenues with P205 billion, an 11-percent increase from P185.09 billion a year earlier. The growth was faster than July’s 9.9 percent.

The Bureau of Customs (BoC) netted P53.54 billion — a 2.2-percent gain from last year’s P52.01 billion — while other offices contributed P2.64 billion, bringing total tax revenues for the month to P473.61 billion.

Tax-revenue growth was faster at 97.6 percent in August than 8.8 percent a month earlier.

Non-tax earnings reached P17.64 billion, with the Treasury contributing P5.90 billion — up 9.1 percent.

Year-to-date, government revenues rose by 9.5 percent to P2.09 trillion from P1.90 trillion last year, while expenditures grew by 0.9 percent to P2.21 trillion from P2.19 trillion.

Meanwhile, in a report also released on Monday, a Fitch Group unit said it revised downward its forecast for budget deficit’s percentage to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Fitch Solutions expects expenditure to slightly undershoot the P3.66 trillion national budget given a likely increase in expenditure only in late 2019.

However, it pointed out that the P4.10 trillion planned budget for 2020 will be close to fully allocated, and will represent closer to a 12.8 percent increase in expenditure rather than the government’s projection of 12.0 percent, given the lower than planned 2019 expenditure.

“As such, we at Fitch Solutions forecast a budget balance of -2.8 percent and -3.5 percent of GDP in 2019 and 2020 respectively, adjusted from our previous forecasts of -3.0 percent and -3.2 percent,” it said.