Philippine deficit surges to 688.96 mln USD in July

The Philippine budget deficit rose to 32.2 billion pesos (688.96 million U.S. dollars) in July, exceeding last year's deficit of 1.8 billion pesos (38.51 million U.S. dollars) for the period on the back of robust expenditure growth, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Monday.

Year-to-date, the budget shortfall reached 18.5 billion pesos ( 395.83 million U.S. dollars), lower than the 55.7 billion pesos (1. 19 billion U.S. dollars) posted last year.

The government's total revenues for July hit 178.5 billion pesos (3.82 billion U.S. dollars), 7 percent higher than previous year's figure, while total revenues from January to July reached 1. 26 trillion pesos (26.96 billion U.S. dollars), reflecting a 15 percent growth year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the national government's disbursement for July amounted to 210.7 billion pesos (4.51 billion U.S. dollars), 25 percent higher than a year ago level. For the first seven months to July, expenditures rose by 11 percent year-on-year to 1.28 trillion pesos (27.39 billion U.S. dollars).

With the increased spending in July, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said expenditures are on track to drive the country's growth for the third quarter.

"The pace of expenditure growth we are seeing has a clear positive trend since we adopted a whole-of-government approach to addressing underspending," he said. Endi