Deficit falls by 1 per cent

Muscat: The Sultanate’s budget deficit fell 1 per cent to RO 1,896.8 million till the end of November 2019.

The budget deficit for the same period of 2018 was at RO 1,878.4 million, according to the latest data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

The total revenue fell 2.3 per cent to RO 9,463.4 million for the first 11 months of 2019, over the same period of the previous year.

The net oil revenue fell 5.1 per cent to RO 5,584.3 at the end of November 2019, from RO 5,883.4 million for the same period of the previous year, the report added.

Revenue from natural gas dropped 11.5 per cent to RO 1,570.1 million, while customs duty and corporate income tax contributed RO 199.6 million and RO 603.7 million, respectively, during the period. In addition, capital revenue fell to RO 68.6 million during the 11 months of 2019,

falling 43.4 per cent over the same period of 2018.

As far as expenditures are concerned, total public expenditure fell 1.8 per cent to RO 11,360.2 million till November 2019. This is against an expenditure of RO 11,565.6 million for the same period of 2018.

Of this, current expenditure rose by 1.3 per cent to RO 8,025.7 million, while investment expenditure fell by 7.3 per cent to RO 2,136.5 million till November 2019.

The participation and support dropped by 7.8 per cent to RO 634.9 million till November 2019 from RO 688.3 million for the same period of 2018.

The government’s total public expenditure in 2018 stood at RO 13,599.2 million, with a total revenue of RO 10,949.6 million, leaving a deficit of RO 2,649.6 million.