Economic and Financial Review - June 2019

June 2019 Economic and Financial Review GRENADA

declines in the other expenditure categories. Higher transfers were largely influenced by a rise in pension payments and an increase in ex-gratia payments to public servants to a minimum of $350 which commenced in January 2019. In terms of other developments on the current account, grant resources in support of current expenditure totalled $12.0m, higher than the amount of $6.9m received in the first half of 2018. On the capital account, capital grants trended downwards to $19.2m from $23.2m in the first six months of 2018. Capital grants were for the most part were sourced from the National Transformation Fund. Capital expenditure in the period under review undershot outlays made in 2018 by $6.6m to $23.7m, as implementation of the PSIP continued to be negatively impacted by capacity and institutional factors. The overall surplus generated enable the central government to increase its deposits held at commercial banks and to retire debt held by both domestic and external creditors. Consequently, the disbursed outstanding debt of the public sector totalled $1,994.4m at the end of June 2019, 4.6 per cent lower than the total

in the tax revenue category were partially mitigated by a contraction of 10.4 per cent ($1.9m) in non-tax revenue to $16.3m. Of non-tax revenue, receipts from the Citizen by Investment programme rose more than four-fold to $3.8m.

Grenada Public Finance

EC$M

250.0

200.0

150.0

100.0

50.0

0.0

19 Q1

15 Q4

16 Q1

16 Q2

16 Q3

16 Q4

17 Q1

17 Q2

17 Q3

17 Q4

18 Q1

18 Q2

18 Q3

18 Q4

19 Q2

Recurrent Revenue Recurrent Expenditure Current Account Balance

Current expenditure fell by 0.1 per cent ($0.4m) to $308.3m, on account of contractions in most of the spending categories, with the exception of transfers and subsidies. Expenditure on personal emoluments, which accounts for 43.2 per cent of current revenue, decreased by 5.0 per cent($7.0m) to $133.1m, as a consequence of a decline in public sector employment through attrition. Spending on goods and services was down by 2.3 per cent ($1.5m) while, interest payments declined by 4.2 per cent ($1.2m), reflecting lower external and domestic payments. In contrast, transfers and subsidies rose by 12.4 per cent ($9.2m), partly offsetting the

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Eastern Caribbean Central Bank