€12.1 million surplus in January 2015

During the first month of the year, recurrent revenue registered an increase of €78.3 million whilst expenditure went down by €22.7 million, thereby resulting in a positive change in the Government’s Consolidated Fund of €101.1 million.

During January, recurrent revenue was recorded at €276.4 million, up from €198.1 million last year. The major contributors to the comparative increase of 39.5 per cent were higher proceeds from Grants by €74.0 million. Moreover, Value Added Tax and Miscellaneous Receipts increased by €3.4 million and €2.7 million respectively. On the contrary, Customs and Excise Duties registered a fall of €4.0 million.

Compared to January last year, lower spending was registered on recurrent and capital expenditures and interest payments resulting in a decline in total expenditure of €22.7 million.

Recurrent expenditure went down by €11.5 million, totalling €220.1 million. Lower outlays were primarily registered in Programmes and Initiatives by €31.9 million. The major declines in the Programmes and Initiatives category were recorded in social security benefits (€12.5 million), medicines and surgical materials (€8.5 million) and Feed-in tariff (€5.0 million).

Conversely, added outlays were registered in the Contributions to Government Entities (€14.0 million), Operational and Maintenance Expenses (€3.5 million) and Personal Emoluments (€3.0 million) (Table 3).

The interest component of the public debt servicing costs for the period under review declined to €14.2 million from €17.8 million last year.

In addition, Government’s Capital Expenditure for January stood at €30.0 million from €37.7 million last year. This was mainly due to a lower equity injection to the national air carrier in January this year which was only partially outweighed by added outlays on enterprise investment incentives.

As illustrated in Table 2, at the end of January, Central Government Debt stood at €5,197.6 million, up by €180.4 million, over the corresponding period last year. This was the result of higher Malta Government Stocks, which added €288.7 million. On the other hand, Treasury Bills and Foreign Loans went down by €77.1 million and €10.6 million respectively. As a result of consolidation, higher holdings by government funds in Malta Government Stocks resulted in a reduction in debt of €25.9 million. The Euro coins issued in the name of the Treasury went up by €5.3 million when compared to the coin stock as at the end of January 2014, and totalled €60.3 million.