Under Section 10 of the Fiscal Management (Responsibility) Act No. 3 of 2003, Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Finance and Planning last week released the Mid-year Fiscal Position Report for the period from January to April 2012. Given below are some key information extracted from this report.
External debt
At the end of April 2012, the total outstanding external debt of the Government is US$ 18.9 billion. Total debt service payment from January to April 2012 amounted to US$ 378.4 million. Of this, US$ 216.3 million was for principal payments and the balance US$ 162.1 million was for the interest payments. The total estimated debt service payments for 2012 is US$ 1,630 million, of which 23 percent has already been paid by April 30, 2012.
Interest cost
Interest payments on foreign and domestic debt amounted to Rs.173,651 million with a 22 percent increase over the corresponding period of last year. The increase in domestic market interest rates on government securities and the depreciation of the rupee against major foreign currencies, which increased the interest payments on foreign currency denominated debt, were the major reasons for this increase.
Commitments
The total undisbursed balance of foreign financing available for development projects as at end of April 2012 as US$ 8,118 implementation duration for these commitments will be in the range of 25 years and hence the utilization will be on the same basis.million. The project
Govt. salaries
The government has spent Rs.112,114 million on salaries and wages of public servants during the first four months with an increase of 4% over the corresponding period of the previous year. This was due to the increase in the special allowance by 10% of the basic salary of public servants of non staff category and 5% of the basic salary to staff category from January 2012.
Pension costs
Expenditure on pension payments had increased by 15% to Rs.37,133 million. This was mainly due to the full impact of 22,773 of new retirees in 2011 and partial impact of 8,100 new retirees in the first four months of 2012. The increase in pension payments by Rs.500 to those who retired before 01.01.2004 and by Rs.250 to the pensioners retired during the period between 02.01.2004 and 31.12.2006 also contributed to this increase.
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