The government’s current reserves amount to 505.2 billion patacas, Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac said in the legislature yesterday.
During a plenary session yesterday, Leong revealed details of a report about the government’s implementation of last year’s budget.
According to Leong, the government’s revenues stood at 110.5 billion patacas last year, 5.6 billion patacas – or 4.8 percent – less than 2015.
The government’s expenditure rose 2.3 percent – or 1.9 billion patacas – to 82.6 billion patacas last year, compared to 2015, according to Leong.
Therefore, the government recorded a surplus of 27.9 billion patacas last year, Leong said. Out of this surplus, 6.2 billion patacas was allocated to the government’s “autonomous entities”, so that 21.7 billion patacas will be put into the public coffers, Leong noted.
According to previous news reports, the government recorded a surplus of 35.4 billion patacas in 2015.
Leong also said that out of the total revenue of 110.5 billion patacas last year, income from direct gaming taxation amounted to 77.6 billion patacas, a decrease of 4.9 billion patacas compared to 2015.
Direct gaming taxes generated 70.2 percent of the government’s total revenue last year.
The budget for 2016 predicted that the government’s revenue would reach 100 billion patacas, while the government’s budgeted expenditure was 96.5 billion patacas.
According to Leong, until September this year, the government had “basic” reserves of 127.9 billion patacas as well as “extraordinary” reserves of 355.6 billion patacas. Therefore the total fiscal reserves stood at 483.5 billion patacas in September.
According to the law on the government’s financial reserves which has been in force since 2012, the government’s reserves consist of “basic” reserves and “extraordinary” reserves.
Leong said that the surplus of 21.7 billion patacas that was part of the public coffers would be added to the “extraordinary” reserves. Therefore, the latest total reserves amount to 505.2 billion patacas, according to Leong, or more than half a trillion patacas.
