Lebanon’s fiscal deficit contracted by 27.19% in 2014 to reach $3.07B by end of year, coupled with a primary surplus (which excludes debt services) of $1.31B, compared to the $239.68M primary deficit recorded in 2013. The former improvement came as a result of total revenues registering a 15.48% yearly surge to $10.88B, outpacing the 2.28% year-on-year (y-o-y) uptick in total government expenditures to $13.95B.
In terms of revenue, Telecom transfers to the Ministry of Finance, accounting for 18.50% of total revenues, surged by 40.72% yearly to $2.01B in the end of 2014. However, parts of these transfers are a one off payment that will not reoccur in 2015. Customs inflows (12.5% to total revenue) slipped by an annualized 5.36% to stand at $1.35B by December 2014, while VAT receipts (20.13% of total revenue) added 0.17% y-o-y to reach $2.19B over the same period.
As for expenditures, they were mostly driven by the 10.51% increase in interest payments (34.15% of total government expenditures) to $4.19B, in addition to 3.32% increase in Transfers to EDL to $2.09B in 2014.
Over the month of December alone, the government’s fiscal balance recorded a deficit of $48.82M with a primary surplus of $282M compared to the $238.09M fiscal deficit in December 2013 and a primary surplus of $70.42M.
Total Fiscal and Primary Balance by End-Year