:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/P4W5W6VPBRDBBJ5NST663Z56NE.jpeg "Due to drought and increased spending on public works, the budget deficit in January was 12 times higher than in 2022 1")
The public accounts had in January a primary deficit of $203,938.3 million, compared to $16,698 million in the first month of last year, the Ministry of Economy reported.
Public spending: the government started the year with strict control of the accounts and would end the first month with a surplus
According to private estimates, January would have had a favorable outcome of around $170,000 million. The Ministry of Finance will publish the data this Wednesday, which is part of the objectives with the IMF
The wallet that drives Sergio Massa attributed the result to lower income than expected by Export duties linked to the severe drought affecting agricultural production and an acceleration in the budget execution of Public work.
As the Ministry of Finance pointed out on Wednesday, the primary fiscal red, which is the one that the IMF takes into account to observe the achievement of the objectives of the current program, has jumped above the 1100% compared to almost $17 billion which he had recorded last January.
Deficit, reserves, emissions, drought and debt: the 5 key figures that the government and the IMF will review in Washington
The mission responsible for the Economy will begin the last round of negotiations before requesting the first disbursement of the year. The executive branch considers the last objectives achieved
Total public sector revenue was $1,723,204.5, (92.4% nominal year-on-year increase), while no revenue from primary issuance of government securities was recorded. On the export duty side, there was a year-over-year increase of 41.1% nominal – which implies a marked decline in real terms – affected by the drought of recent months, explained the Treasury.
At the same time, tax revenues linked to economic activity have increased 103.3% on the side of VAT net of Refunds and 104.4% over one year on the side of income tax. Meanwhile, social security contributions have increased 101.5%they assured.
The government has increased the Expenditure Budget by more than $52,000 million, for discretionary transfers to the provinces and price control
He did so through Administrative Decision 122 of February 17 with the signature of the brand new head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Agustín Rossi, and the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa.
Regarding primary expenditure, the public sector reached $1,927,142.8 million in January and recorded an increase of 111.2% yoy At the same time, capital expenditure increased by 151.6% in nominal terms compared to January 2022, which, according to the Ministry of Economy, reflects “the national government’s commitment to the public investment.
For this year, the government must reduce the primary budget deficit from the 2.4% of GDP with which it ended 2022 to 1.9% of GDPwith a monetary issue ceiling to help the Treasury 0.6% of GDP. On this last point, the first three months of the year will have as much ceiling to finance the deficit $139 trillionnearly one-sixth of the full-year nominal high of $883 trillion.
The first red cap until the end of March will be $441 trillion. With this first result in January, thus, the public sector has already “used” almost half of the deficit margin authorized by the agreement with the agency.
An economist’s analysis Nadine Arganaraz assured that “after 6 consecutive months of decline in real expenditure, went up again in January.” “From the analysis, it appears that the total income had a negative real interannual variation of 3.2%while tax revenue fell by 2.7% real“, he mentioned.
According to his estimates, the primary deficit of $203 billion is “equivalent to 0.13% of GDP. Therefore, given the target of 1.9% of GDP for the whole year, over the next 11 months the government must run a deficit of 1.77% of GDP,” he said. -he mentioned.
The data of a sharp increase in public spending and a jump in the primary deficit were contrary to what private measures expected. The LCG firm had estimated that “a slight surplus is observed around the $169 trillion (0.1% of GDP),” according to a recent report. The difference between this report and the official data released today was the level of spending which, instead of 1.5 trillion what the consultant expected, ended up being 1.9 trillion.
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