Central Government’s current account recorded a whopping $59.1B surplus in the first quarter of 2023, according to a report from Central Bank. The financial institution said this is reflective of revenue collections from taxation and inflows of $41.6B from the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) as well as [$4.7B million of Carbon Credit (CC) sales.](https://www.guyanastandard.com/2023/07/11/75-region-one-villages-to-benefit-from-1-5b-of-carbon-credit-funds/#:~:text=Guyana%20has%20received%20its%20first,%24750%20million%20up%20to%202030. “”)
The report states that total current revenue (excluding NRF and CC inflows) rose by 19.8 percent to $81.9B. This performance was attributed to greater revenue receipts from domestic taxes by 24.4 percent to $79.6B.
With respect to tax revenue, Bank of Guyana said this saw an expansion that was driven by greater collection of Income Taxes by 34.0 percent to G$45B, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Excise Taxes by 6.5 percent to G$24.2B, Trade Taxes by 44.4 percent to G$8.1B and other taxable revenues by 9.4 percent to $2.2B.
As for total current expenditure (including interest charges), this was $69.6B, reflective of budgetary spending.
With respect to capital expenditure, the bank said this expanded by G$15.1B to G$27.3B. The bank said this capital absorption represented 7.0 percent of the budgeted target for 2023, which was higher than the 5.6 percent attained for same period last year. There were also major disbursements in the housing and construction sectors as well as social welfare, which represented 26.9 percent, 21.4 percent and 18.6 percent of aggregate capital expenditure respectively.
As a percentage of total capital expenditure, the remaining disbursements were as follows: agriculture (8.8 percent), health (7.6 percent), administration (3.9 percent), power generation (2.3 percent), education (2.1 percent), transport & communication (1.3 percent), public safety (1.2 percent), environment & pure water (1.2 percent), national security & defence (0.3 percent), and culture/youth (0.2 percent).
In contrast, capital spending declined in the manufacturing and fishing sectors. Central Government financing comprised of net domestic borrowing of $30.4B and net external borrowing of G$1.8B.
