Lebanon’s fiscal deficit narrowed from $727M by February 2016 to $162M during the same period this year. This was attributed to the 18.89% yearly decrease government expenditures and the 5.64% annual rise in fiscal revenues.
During the same period, the total primary balance displayed a surplus of $331M by the February 2017 compared to a deficit of $245M by February 2016.
Total government revenues stood at $1.85B by February 2017, compared to a lower level of $1.47B by February 2016. Tax revenues, constituting the largest share of total public revenues, increased by a yearly 8.12% to $1.26B. In details, VAT revenues (grasping a 35.56% share of tax receipts) rose by 8.35% y-o-y to $451M, while custom revenues (12.23% of tax receipts) dropped by a marginal 0.56% to $121M, over the same period. As for telecom revenues (15.31% of total government revenues), they witnessed an incline of 1.56% y-o-y to $265M.
As for expenditures, total government expenditures reached to $2B during the first 2 months of the year. Regarding transfers to Electricite du Liban, they doubled annually to reach $205M, mainly due to rise in average oil prices. Moreover, interest payments on government’s debt went up 1.65% to $469M, due to the 8.14% rise in interest payments on domestic debt to $353M, which offset the 14.21% decline in the interest payments on foreign debt to $115M.
Yearly Government Deficit by February (In $M)
Source: Ministry of finance