After three consecutive months of surpluses, the Philippines posted a budget deficit of 14.5 billion pesos (326.3 million dollars) in September, the government said Wednesday. The September figure brought the cumulative budget deficit for the first nine months to 40 billion pesos, still below the government's target ceiling of 54 billion for the period, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said.
This represents about two-thirds of the programmed deficit of 63 billion pesos or 0.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2007. "This allowed us to post a budget surplus of 971 million pesos in the third quarter, an over-performance of 23.7 billion pesos against the programmed deficit of 22.7 billion pesos for the three-month period," Teves told reporters. The September deficit was also an improvement over the 16.2 billion-peso deficit posted in the same period last year.
While tax revenue in the third quarter saw double-digit growth, expenditures during the period exceeded the ceiling of 301.7 billion pesos by 678 million, Teves said. The government has vowed to spend aggressively on infrastructure projects this year and over the next three years. Increased government spending helped the Southeast Asian economy expand by 7.3 percent in the first half, the fastest pace of growth in almost two decades.