The budget spends nearly 9,000 billion VND to pay interest on loans every month.

By July 2017, the central budget had a deficit of more than VND87,000 billion while local budget revenue was greater than expenditure.

The Ministry of Finance's report shows that after 7 months, total budget revenue reached more than 666,680 billion VND, equal to 55% of the estimate. Meanwhile, total accumulated budget expenditure after 7 months is estimated at more than 695,000 billion VND.

Of which, domestic revenue reached more than 532,000 billion VND, revenue from production and business activities was low, of which revenue from selling State-owned shares in enterprises only reached 16.7% of the year's estimate, revenue from dividends and profits of corporations and general companies (100% state-owned charter capital) reached 40.7% of the year's estimate.

The Government is determined to balance the budget revenue and expenditure ratio and strive to reduce the budget deficit. (Illustration photo: KT)

According to the Ministry of Finance's assessment, the budget collection progress of localities basically met the annual estimate and increased compared to the same period last year. 43/63 localities' domestic revenue reached 56% or more of the annual estimate, of which excluding land use fees and lottery revenue, 12 localities reached over 62% of the annual estimate; 52/63 localities' revenue was higher than the same period in 2016. However, there are still 20 provinces/cities whose revenue has not met the annual estimate (below 56%).

Regarding budget expenditure, expenditures for development investment in the past 7 months were less than 120,000 billion VND, but debt interest payments were 62,290 billion VND. Thus, it is estimated that each month the budget must spend nearly 9,000 billion VND to pay debt interest. The remaining regular expenditure is still the largest with a figure of 511,290 billion VND in 7 months.

According to VNE