Quarterly data reveals higher domestic revenues, ministry

sahennews

 Domestic revenues picked up by JD315 million or 12.2 percent in the first quarter of the current year compared with the same period of 2020, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.

In a statement, the ministry indicated that the growth in domestic revenue was primary driven by higher tax and non-tax collections by JD174 million and the JD141 million respectively, noting that the overall public revenues for the January-March period totaled JD1.8517 billion in comparison with JD1.5713 billion during the same period in 2020.

“Public spending also increased by 5.3 percent in the three-month period, with JD107.4 million spent more than the same period of last year,” the ministry added.

The upshot of these improvements is the drop in the public budget deficit by JD173 million, hitting JD274 million during the first quarter of 2021.

Meanwhile, the total government debt went up to JD26.807 billion with loans from the Social Security Investment Fund (SSIF) excluded, which is about 85.6 percent out of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of March of this year, compared to 85.4 percent at the end of 2020.

//Petra// RZ