Financial Review

Current Revenue for 2017 is projected at $192,673 million, exceeding budget by $6,651 million or 4%. Internal Revenue and Customs & Trade Administration receipts are expected to surpass their budgets by $8,098 million and $2,376 million respectively, while Value-Added and Excise taxes are expected to have a shortfall of $3,983 million.

More specifically, Corporation Taxes and Income Tax will exceed budget by $6,091 million and $2,082 million respectively. Value Added Tax (VAT), which was budgeted to bring in $45,180 million will fall short of that target by $4,749 million. Excise Tax is expected to increase by $806 million compared to a budgeted of $34,369 million.

The Minister indicated that tax receipts from oil and gas support activities are expected to increase by $3.2 billion while international trade transactions are projected to rise to $19.4 billion, an increase of 11.2 percent.

In 2017 the standard rate of VAT was reduced to 14%, the registration threshold was increased to $15 million from $10 million, the range of zero-rated items moved to exempt or standard rated with the result that the number and range of items that were exempted from VAT increased significantly.

Personal Emoluments and Other Goods and Services are projected to fall short of budget by $563 million and $1,879 million respectively while transfer payments are expected to increase by $974 million over the budget of $71,094 million.

Interest Expenditure for 2017 is expected to decrease by $528 million compared with budget of $6,862 million.

The current balance in 2017 is projected at $10,278 million against a budget of $1,631 million, due in large measure to lower realised current expenditure.

Capital revenue and grants are expected to be $14,315 million compared with budget of $13,152 million while Capital Expenditure is projected at $58,146 million which is an increase of $1,388 million, or 2% over the budgeted figure of $56,758.

Debt repayment is projected to decrease by $83 million compared with budget of $8,974 with the entire decrease being on the External debt.

The overall balance on financial operations for 2017 is expected to be $42,447 million compared with budget of $50,949 million. The overall balance is expected to be financed from external ($19,714 million) and domestic ($22,730 million) sources.