Quarterly Financial Report March 2015

The Quarterly Financial Statement for March 2015 is now available. 

For the March 2015 Quarter the net operating balance of the General Government Sector as at 31 March 2015 was a surplus of $8.5 million, made up of:

• Operating revenue was $94.9 million; and
• Operating expenditure was $86.3 million.

The overall fiscal balance which excludes theeffectsof depreciation, but includes capital expenditure was a surplus of $3.6 million.  The full Quarterly Statement is annexed to the Submission.

Total revenue collections for the quarter ending March 2015 were higher than the Budget estimate and were mainly attributable to higher than estimated tax and fishingrevenues. Fishing revenues for 2014/15 are estimated to reach $12 million.

Total operating expenses for the quarter ending March 2015 were lower than the Budget estimate and were mainly attributable to lower levels of spending by agencies, the underwrite of the long haul Sydney (cost to March $2.154 million) and Los Angeles (Cost to March $3.799 million) routes and the TOA Apex Guarantee. 

 Welfare payments remain also below budget by 7 per cent.

 Minister for Finance, the Honourable Mark Brown was pleased with the general direction of the accounts. 

 “I am confident that the 2014/15 we will have a significant underlying operating surplus due to the performance of revenues and our lower expenditure overall.  It is likely that we will also have fiscal surplus which takes into account all our cash expenditure on the operations of Government and capital.”

 Minister Brown noted in particular that the performance of the underwrite to date continued to be a positive. This is an excellent lead in to the 2015/16 Budget which we will be presenting in June. 

 Gross borrowings of the Crown were $97.782 million, net borrowings of the General Government Sector (excluding loan reserves and borrowings by SOEs) were $54.712 million.  The net cash reserve which is essentially unencumbered increased by $0.26 million since last quarter to a total of $16.218 million.

As at 31 March 2015 the Crown held $54.7 million in cash which was held in various term deposits, against this amount were $35.2 million of commitments, leaving a balance of $19.5 million. 

Table 1 Overall Budget Balance

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 Table 2 Total Gross Borrowings

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