The national government missed its budget deficit target last year as lower-than-targeted expenditures offset a surge in revenues, data showed on Tuesday. Full-year collections reached P2.473 trillion, the Treasury bureau said, breaching the P2.426-trillion program by 2 percent and up 13 percent for the year — the highest annual growth since 2013. Expenditures, meanwhile, grew by 11 percent to P2.823 trillion from 2016 but missed the target by 3 percent. The government ran a P107.1-billion deficit in December alone, the bureau reported. “While a budget deficit means more debt burden for future generations, I believe that this rise in debt would be more than compensated by an increase in economic activity and income.”

Source: Manila Times February 27, 2018 16:30 UTC