December 13 (SeeNews) - Serbia's budget balance showed a surplus of 79.8 billion dinars ($785 million/668 million euro) in the ten months through October, compared to a surplus of 34.3 billion dinars in the prior-year period, according to finance ministry data.
Primary budget surplus increased to 187.4 billion dinars in January-October from 149.2 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 8.2% on the year, reaching 934.1 billion dinars in the period under review, while expenditure increased 3.1% to 854.3 billion dinars.
Ten-month tax revenues rose by a real 10.8% to 854.3 billion dinars, non-tax revenues went down 3.1% to 118.2 billion dinars, and grants decreased 51.3% to 3.7 billion dinars in the first ten months of 2017.
On the expenditure side, current expenditure fell by a real 1.8% to 759.5 billion dinars, while capital expenditure soared to 55.8 billion dinars from 20.4 billion dinars.
In October alone, Serbia reported a budget surplus of 13.2 billion dinars, based on revenues of 99.9 billion dinars and expenditure of 86.7 billion dinars. The primary surplus totalled 18.6 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 = 119.474 dinars)