Fiscal surplus slumps 30 pct in February

The city’s fiscal surplus plunged in the first two months of this year, amounting to only MOP15.76 billion, following a continuous decline in gaming taxes reaching government coffers. The latest update on the central account by the Financial Services Bureau (DSF) reveals that the fiscal surplus that the Special Administrative Region registered at the end of February had dropped by 29.8 per cent year-on-year compared to the MOP22.4 billion that Macau generated during the first two months in 2013. The data also indicates that the government is actually generating less fiscal surplus in February. In January, the fiscal surplus of Macau stood at some MOP8.3 billion, suggesting that the fiscal surplus gained last month was only some MOP7.4 billion, representing a year-on-year drop of 24 per cent, or month-on-month drop of 10.3 per cent. Nevertheless, the MOP7.4 billion fiscal surplus still meets the government’s budgeted annual surplus of MOP51.86, or an average MOP4.32 billion per month. In addition, the drop in the fiscal surplus has slightly narrowed compared to the year-on-year drop of 34.1 per cent in January. The fall in fiscal surplus resulted from the decrease in revenues that the government gained, which declined 25.2 per cent year-on-year, amounting to MOP20.2 billion. Gaming taxes, accounting for 84 per cent of total revenues, dropped 22.7 per cent year-on-year during the first two months of the year, amounting to MOP16.9 billion, following the accumulated gaming revenues drop of 35.1 per cent year-on-year to MOP66.7 billion in the two months. Other direct taxes, meanwhile, rose by 29.2 per cent, reaching MOP733 million, compared to the same period of last year. By contrast, indirect taxes slumped 46 per cent year-on-year, despite only amounting to some MOP519 million. On the other hand, the accumulative expenditure of the government during the first two months slightly dropped by 2.4 per cent year-on-year, amounting to MOP4.39 billion. This also suggests that the expenditure of the government in February had decreased by 16 per cent year-on-year, spending only some MOP2.2 billion. Compared to January, the expenditure in the month slightly increased by some MOP17 million. K.L.