Mozambican government deficit financed in 2017 60% below budget forecast

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Mozambican government deficit financed in 2017 60% below budget forecast

2:10 CAT | 27 Jun 2018

(in file CoM)

The Mozambican public deficit financed in 2017 was 60 percent below the budget forecast, according to the General State Account (CGE) of 2017.

State revenues in 2017 amounted to around 213,222.9 million meticais [EUR 3,087 million] compared to expenses amounting to 247,265.6 million meticais [EUR 3,580 million], according to the document released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The exercise results in a deficit of 34,042.7 million meticais [EUR 492,9 million], which compares with 85,955.2 million meticais [EUR 1.2 billion] budgeted.

The figures reflect “the government’s efforts to contain the level of growth of public debt,” the government writes in the document.

“Budgetary policy for 2017 has maintained the principle of fiscal consolidation initiated in 2016, and is oriented towards the sustainability of public expenditure, ensuring a gradual correction of fiscal imbalances,” it adds.

The CGE points out that in 2017 the real growth in gross domestic product (GDP) was 3.7 percent compared to the expected 5.5 percent, and that the average annual inflation rate was 15.11 percent, below the forecast of 15.5 percent.

The Ministry of Finance further notes that the 2017 CGE “reports a containment” of several headings, such as “staff costs, at about 0.32 percent of GDP, compared with 0.61 percent of GDP from 2015” as well as “containment of goods and services” which represented “around 2.7 percent of GDP, compared to 2015, when it was 3.80 percent of GDP”.

Source: Lusa