November 8 (SeeNews) - Serbia's budget balance showed a surplus of 66.6 billion dinars ($650 million/560.7 million euro) in the nine months through September, compared to a surplus of 27.2 billion dinars in the prior-year period, according to finance ministry data.
Primary budget surplus increased to 168.8 billion dinars in January-September from 134.3 billion dinars in the respective period of last year, figures posted on the website of the finance ministry show.
Total budget revenues grew by a real 7.6% on the year, reaching 834.2 billion dinars in the period under review, while expenditure increased 2.6% to 767.6 billion dinars.
Nine-month tax revenues rose by a real 10.4% to 724.8 billion dinars, non-tax revenues went down 4.6% to 106.2 billion dinars, and grants decreased 56.2% to 3.2 billion dinars in the first nine months of 2017.
On the expenditure side, current expenditure fell by a real 2.2% to 683.5 billion dinars, while capital expenditure soared to 49.2 billion dinars from 18.5 billion dinars.
In September alone, Serbia reported a budget surplus of 119.7 million dinars, based on revenues of 89.7 billion dinars and expenditure of 89.6 billion dinars. The primary surplus totalled 13.4 billion dinars.
The fiscal deficit of the country amounted to 7.9 billion dinars at the end of 2016, due to the repayment of 13 billion dinars of debt of state-оwned petrochemicals producer HIP Petrohemija owed to oil and gas company NIS [BEL:NIIS] in December. Excluding the Petrohemija debt repayment, the country would have closed 2016 with a consolidated budget surplus of 5 billion dinars, the ministry said earlier.
(1 euro = 118.810 dinars)