Portugal recorded a budget surplus of 2.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in national accounts through September, after remaining at 0.8% in the first half, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) made Friday familiar.
The national accounts thus show an improvement on the deficit of 2.5% recorded until the end of September last year, after having already reached a surplus of 0.8% in the first half of this year.
The significant improvement compared to the figures of the first nine months of last year is explained by an increase in total revenues of 11.6% and a decrease in total expenses of 1.1%.
Over the three quarters of this year as a whole, the value of current receipts (weighing 43.4% of GDP) has increased by 13.5% compared to the same period last year, driven by the rise in taxes on income and wealth with 28.3% and 15.7% of taxes on production and imports.
In contrast, social contributions increased by 8.6% and turnover by 16.1%, while other current income fell by 24.5% and capital income by 51.8%.
Current expenditure (weighting 38.4% of GDP) in turn fell by 0.4%, due to the fall in the value of subsidies by 71.5% and interest rates by 9.8%. In contrast, social benefits increased by 3.1%, as did personnel costs, while intermediate consumption increased by 5.1%.
The value of capital expenditures decreased by 10.9%, reflecting the reduction in other capital expenditures by 53.5%, while capital expenditure increased by 9.8%.
If we isolate only the third quarter of this year, the budget balance reached a surplus of 6.8% of GDP (4,147.2 million euros), which contributed significantly to the cumulative result of the first nine months of the year, and that compared to the 3.5% deficit in the homologous period.
The third quarter result reflects a 10.8% increase in total revenues and 2.7% in total expenses compared to the same period last year.
The 15.2% increase in current revenue is due to increases in all its components, except other current revenues, INE indicates.
In this way, taxes on income and wealth, on production and imports, social contributions and sales increased by 32.7%, 9.4%, 9.7% and 16.4% respectively, while other income increased by 19.2%. % decreased.
“The positive evolution of tax revenue (20.0%) and contributing revenue (9.7%) shows the recovery in economic activity, the behavior of the labor market compared to the same period, as well as, in the case of taxes on production and imports, the evolution of inflation and also post-pandemic base effects, such as those mentioned above on the IRC,” the statistics office explains.
On the expenditure side, there is an increase in current expenditure of 2.3%, due to the increase in expenditure on social benefits (2.7%), in personnel expenditure (3.0%), with intermediate consumption registering an increase of 2.6% and other current expenses of 26.6%.
In contrast, interest expenses fell by 4.7% and subsidies paid fell by 46.8%.
For the whole year, the government forecasts a deficit of 1.9% of GDP, but the Prime Minister has already indicated that it should not exceed 1.5% of GDP.
Source: DN
