State expenditure decreased by 15.5 percent

As of September 9, State expenditure has decreased by 15.5 percent compared to the same period last year. 

The Weekly Fiscal Development Report by the Finance Ministry indicates that as of the end of last week, MVR 25.4 billion has been spent from the State Budget. The main reason for this is that spending on development projects (capital expenditure) has gone down by 57.7 percent. 

57.7 percent of recurrent expenditure is on administrative operations of State offices. Recurrent expenditure also sees a year-on-year decrease of 4.5 percent. As per the data, the decrease in recurrent expenditure is owed to lower spending on procuring administrative resources and repairs. 

Procurement expenses went down by 15.5 percent, while repair and maintenance expenses went down by 15.6 percent. 

In recurrent expenditure, expenses on transport saw a decrease of 5.8 percent compared to last year. Spending on government aid and subsidies also saw a decrease of 7 percent. 

Capital expenditure stood at MVR 3.3 billion by end of last week. Including spending on bridge, road development and airport development, MVR 2.9 billion has been spent on infrastructure assets this year. 

Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) projects were estimated at MVR 12.4 billion in this year's budget. However, as of now, only MVR 4.1 billion has been spent on PSIP projects this year. 

Last year, a large portion of the PSIP budget was spent on land reclamation and road development. This year, a significant percentage of PSIP budget was spent on harbours and projects relating to docking. A total of MVR 2.6 billion has been spent on such projects this year. 

As per the statistics, only MVR 131.6 million has been spent on housing projects this year. 

By the end of last week, MVR 25.4 billion has been spent from the State budget, with maintaining an overall budget surplus of MVR 868.7 million. 

As of last week's end, revenue and free aid is at MVR 26.3 billion, marking a 7.8 percent increase from the previous year. 

As per the Weekly Fiscal Development Report, tax income stands at MVR 20.5 billion by the end of last week, coming to 78 percent of the revenue received within the period. 

With the changes brought to tax rates, there is a 104.6 percent increase in green tax compared to last year. There is also a 57.9 percent increase in departure tax, and 17.3 percent increase in income tax. 

In other revenue, Airport Development Fee shows a 56.8 percent year-on-year increase. This is owed to the fact that tourist arrivals have seen a 9.7 percent increase this year compared to the same period last year. So far this year, Maldives has welcomed over 1.5 million tourists. 

Land acquisition and conversion fee, lease period extension fee and resort rents also saw an increase within this period. With this, total revenue and free aid within the period has seen an 8 percent increase from last year's values.