The 2024-2025 National Budget has been set with a total expenditure of $4.552billion and a total revenue of $3.917b, says Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad.
The fiscal deficit is set at $635.5m, which amounts to about 4.5 per cent of GDP, and Prof Prasad says the country’s debt to GDP ratio is expected to decline to about 77.8 per cent by the end of July 2025.
Prof Prasad outlined personal remittances increased to $1.25b last year and foreign reserves remained strong at almost $3.3b, equivalent to 5.3 months of import cover.
However, growth is expected to slow following a slew of challenges, ranging from unfavourable weather conditions to the unavailability of labour, economic slowdown in Australia and New Zealand, capacity constraints in the tourism sector and a slow start to some government capital projects.
Prof Prasad said they had slightly revised down the growth for this year, from 3.4 per cent to 2.8 per cent for 2024, and projected a 3 per cent growth for 2025 onwards.
“We are headed in the right direction, but we need to keep the momentum going,” he said.
