Government registered a €71 million surplus in 2019

Wednesday, 22 April 2020, 11:26 Last update: about 5 years ago

In 2019, the government registered a surplus of €71 million, equivalent to 0.5% of GDP, the National Statistics Office has said.

"General Government debt amounted to €5,695.6 million or 43.1% of GDP."

"The surplus of General Government for 2019 amounted to around €71 million, a decrease of €166.1 million from the previous year. The balance is calculated as the difference between total revenue (€5,045.3 million) and expenditure (€4,974.3 million) of the General Government. When comparing 2019 over 2018, total revenue increased by €273.4 million, while total expenditure increased by €439.5 million."

When measured as a percentage of GDP, the General Government balance was equivalent to a surplus of 0.5% , a decrease of 1.4 percentage points when compared to the surplus of 1.9% that was registered in 2018. General Government debt increased by €51.5 million to €5,695.6 million over 2018. Despite this, higher GDP resulted in a drop in the debt-to-GDP ratio for 2019 to 43.1%.

Quarterly Accounts for General Government: Q4/2019

In the last quarter of 2019, the government recorded a surplus of €17.5 million.

"During the period October to December 2019, total revenue stood at €1,384.4 million, an increase of €52.3 million when compared to the corresponding quarter in 2018. Increases in revenue were registered in Current taxes on income and wealth (€68.3 million), Market output (€31.5 million) and Net social contributions (€6.0 million). These was partially outweighed by decreases in Capital transfers receivable (€28.4 million), Property income receivable (€13.1 million), Current transfers receivable (€7.8 million) and Taxes on production and imports (€4.2 million)."

"Total expenditure in the fourth quarter of 2019 amounted to €1,366.9 million, an increase of €52 million over the same quarter in 2018. Increases in expenditure were recorded in Intermediate consumption (€41.7 million), Compensation of employees (€34.4 million), Gross capital formation (€30.6 million), as well as Social benefits and social transfers in kind (€13.3 million). On the contrary, when compared to the corresponding quarter in 2018, Current transfers payable and Capital transfers payable both registered a decrease of €47.7 million and €19.6 million respectively. Other decreases were recorded in Subsidies payable (€0.5 million), Current taxes on income and wealth (€0.2 million) and Property income payable (€0.1 million)."