Oman’s budget deficit falls by 1%

Muscat: The Sultanate’s budget deficit fell 1 per cent to OMR1,896.8 million till the end of November 2019.
The budget deficit for the same period of 2018 was at OMR1,878.4 million, according to the latest data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
The total revenue of the Oman government fell 2.3 per cent to OMR9,463.4 million for the first 11 months of 2019, over the same period of the previous year.
The net oil revenue of the Oman government fell 5.1 per cent to OMR5,584.3 at the end of November 2019, from OMR5,883.4 million for the same period of the previous year, the report added. Revenue from natural gas dropped 11.5 per cent to OMR1,570.1 million, while customs duty and corporate income tax contributed OMR199.6 million and OMR603.7 million, respectively, during the period. In addition, capital revenue fell to OMR68.6 million during the 11 months of 2019, falling 43.4 per cent over the same period of 2018.
As far as expenditures are concerned, total public expenditure fell 1.8 per cent to OMR11,360.2 million till November 2019. This is against an expenditure of OMR11,565.6 million for the same period of 2018.
Of this, current expenditure rose by 1.3 per cent to OMR8,025.7 million, while investment expenditure fell by 7.3 per cent to OMR2,136.5 million till November 2019.
The participation and support dropped by 7.8 per cent to OMR634.9 million till November 2019 from OMR688.3 million for the same period of 2018.
Oman government’s total public expenditure in 2018 stood at OMR13,599.2 million, with total revenue of OMR10,949.6 million, leaving a deficit of OMR2,649.6 million.