Financial Statements Of The Government For The Eleven Months Ended 31 May 1999

The Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the eleven months ended 31 May 1999 were released by the Treasury today.

The key results are as follows:

In table:
Actual
Forecast

$million

Operating balance (surplus)
3,018
2,587

Crown balance (net worth)
13,200
12,778

Net Crown debt
21,556
22,143

The operating balance for the eleven months ended 31 May was $431 million ahead of forecast, consisting largely of:

Tax revenue being $240 million higher than forecast, due to higher-than-forecast GST ($156 million) and companies tax ($117 million);

Expenses being $95 million lower than forecast; and Net surpluses from SOEs and Crown entities being $54 million higher than forecast.

The full year operating balance is likely to be somewhat higher than the $2.2 billion forecast in the Budget, given the year-to-date improvement against forecast. In addition, there are some one-off improvements to the operating balance to be recorded in June, including gains on sale of Cobb Hydro station by Meridian Energy, and TVNZ's shares in Sky Network TV and CLEAR Communications.

However, the final result for the 1998/99 financial year will be subject to year-end adjustments (eg, GSF pension liability), which may be positive or negative.

The improvement in the Crown balance against forecast of $422 million was largely due to the $431 million higher-than-forecast operating surplus for the eleven months ended 31 May 1999.

Net Crown debt was $587 million lower than forecast largely due to:

Higher-than-forecast tax receipts ($264 million); and

Lower-than-forecast cash disbursed to operations ($279 million) largely due to timing differences.

Net Crown debt is estimated to be 21.9% of GDP at 31 May 1999.

The Crown Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 1999 are required to be tabled in the House of Representatives before publication. The publication and tabling date will be advised in due course. The publication is likely to be in September.

ENDS

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