Oman's total revenue surges by 24% to OMR6.67b

Muscat: The total revenue of the Sultanate's government surged 24.4 per cent to OMR6.67 billion for the first eight months of 2018, over the same period last year due to a major recovery in oil prices, showed provisional statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
The budget deficit fell 34 per cent to OMR1.83 billion during the January-August period of 2018 due to an increase in government revenues driven by high oil income. The budget deficit for the same period of 2017 was much higher at OMR2.77 billion.
As a result of a growth in oil prices, the net oil revenue of the Sultanate's government jumped by 35.8 per cent to OMR4.01 billion during the January-August period of 2018, from OMR2.96 billion for the same period of last year, the NCSI report added.
Revenues from natural gas rose by 25 per cent to OMR1.19 billion, while customs duty and corporate income tax contributed OMR154.1 million and OMR403 million, respectively, during the period. In addition, capital revenue shot up to OMR115.5 million during the first eight months of 2018, registering a growth of 870.6 per cent over the same period last year.
As far as expenditures were concerned, total public expenditure increased by 8.5 per cent to OMR7.96 billion for the first eight months between January and August 2018. This is against an expenditure of OMR7.34 billion for the same period last year, showed the NCSI report.
Of this, current expenditure rose by 11 per cent to OMR5,807.1 million, while investment expenditure fell by 2.5 per cent to OMR1.71 billion in the first eight months of 2018, the NCSI report added.
Meanwhile, the participation and support surged by 26.9 per cent during the January-August period of this year to OMR445.5 million, from OMR351 million for the same period of last year.
The Oman government’s total public expenditure in 2017 stood at OMR12.27 billion, with a total revenue of OMR8.51 billion, leaving a deficit of OMR3.75 billion.