Minister of Economic Affairs, Sen. Hon. Michael Halkitis appeared at a press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister on Thursday where he revealed that the government had met its fiscal targets.
Halkitis told reporters that the government closed the fiscal year with a deficit of 0.5% of GDP which is within the projected range of 0.3-0.7%. He said, “those figures were driven by strong revenue performance, growth in the economy as well as containment of expenditure. They also point to some success in our efforts. You might recall that we expressed concern about the collection of revenue related to high end real estate, we’ve seen some improvement in that and those have been reflected in the last quarter of the last budget year as well as the first quarter of this year that will be forthcoming very soon.”
The government publishes monthly, quarterly and yearly financial reports, the latest numbers reflect the full fiscal year. Halkitis said, “we publish them bearing in mind that organizations like the IMF, such as S&P, such as Moody’s, such as now Fitch, such as all of the bank that invest and private investors that invest in government securities of The Bahamas, study these numbers, they rely on them. And so it is never even in the contemplation of this administration to do anything with number.”
The Minister expressed that the government is happy to have achieved the results without increasing taxes.
