Malta’s economic recovery continues to gather steam. This emerges from official statistics on the Government’s Consolidated Fund for this January.
The national debt at the end of January was €29 million lower than it had been last November. This is diametrically opposite to the Opposition’s assertion that Government finances are out of control.
This decrease in the national debt is also reflected in a substantial improvement in the deficit of the Consolidated Fund. There was a deficit of just €66 million in January 2022. This was the lowest deficit for the month of January since 2019.
In January 2021 the deficit had amounted to €324 million. This means that compared to a year ago there has been an improvement of €258 million in public finances, or an improvement of 80%.
Compared to a year ago there has been an improvement of €258 million in public finances.
While the Government continued to support the economy by means of a high recurrent and capital expenditure, there was a very strong increase in revenue. This was again the exact opposite of the predictions of the Leader of the Opposition.
During the reaction to the budget, Bernard Grech had said that the forecast that there would be an improvement in Government revenue was an exercise in virtual reality.
In fact, in January 2022 Government revenue reached the record figure of €352 million, or almost €50 million more than revenue was before the pandemic. The strongest growing revenue items were income tax, social security contributions, VAT as well as European Union funds.
The results for last January suggest that the Government is well on track to not only meet but also to exceed the fiscal targets it announced in the past Budget.
