MANILA, August 31 ------ The Philippine government’s budget deficit fell in July as revenue collections climbed, the Bureau of Treasury reported. Total revenues in July hit P457.4 billion, while expenses hit P486.2 billion, resulting in a deficit of P28.8 billion. Treasury said this shortfall was 39.7 percent lower compared to the same month last year.
In July, revenue collections rose 11.1 percent, faster than the spending growth of 5.8 percent during the month. The agency also noted that primary expenditures, which do not include interest payments on the country’s debts, reached P406.8 billion in July, representing a 2.7 percent increase over last year. Total primary expenditures from January to July amounted to P2.8 trillion. This similarly outperformed the P2.5 trillion posted in the corresponding period a year ago, the agency said. However, interest payments rose by 25 percent to P79.4 billion in July compared to the same month in 2023. “This was due to the higher cost of financing and depreciation of the peso observed throughout the year,” Treasury said.
Because of this, total interest payments as of the end of July were also higher at P456.7 billion, up by 32 percent or P110.7 billion year-on-year. Excluding interest payments, the Philippines posted a primary surplus for July of P50.6 billion, which was much larger than last year’s P15.7 billion. This reduced the year-to-date primary deficit to P186.1 billion, 26.6 percent below last year’s primary deficit of P253.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the resulting year-to-date budget gap stood at P642.8 billion, up by 7.21 percent or P43.2 billion from the same period last year. The Philippines has been financing its budget shortfall with borrowings. While the country's debt ballooned to a record P15.48 trillion at the end of June, government economic managers have said that this was no cause for concern as long as the economy kept expanding faster than the debt was growing.
Source: news.abs-cbn.com
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