The July primary deficit fell by 32%

In contrast, the financial deficit which includes the payment of interest on the debt was $ 183,223 million. One point to keep in mind is that The OPC does not include as income the assistance of the Central Bank to the Treasury, which amounted during the period to 180,000 million dollars in profits. If this amount is included, the primary result would become a surplus of $ 48,678 million and the financial deficit would be reduced to $ 3,223 million.

In the cumulative first seven months of the year, total income was $ 4 billion, with a nominal increase of 71% and a real increase of 17.3%, and total expenditure of $ 5 billion, this which implied a nominal increase of 33.5% but a real decrease of 8.4%. There is every indication that the savings from the first half of the year will be used in the second half to boost consumption and target economic growth, ahead of the November elections. It must be taken into account that a week ago the government increased budgetary spending by $ 708,000 million, which includes funding for 80 public works. This increase in spending also includes higher revenues of $ 684,000 million, which adds a deficit of $ 24,000 million to the final calculation for the year. The changes will impact the August data.

In July, meanwhile, revenues posted real growth of 18.7% year-on-year, highlighting the solidarity and extraordinary contribution of $ 144,402 million and the jump in export duties of 97.9%. .

On the other hand, primary expenditure contracted by 7.3% mainly due to negative variations in pensions and pensions (9.6%) and public salaries (5%). In contrast, significant increases were recorded in capital expenditure (92.1%) and in energy subsidies (43.9%).

The OPC stressed that the level of spending on social programs “decreased in real terms compared to last year, but was 3 times higher compared to the same period in 2019”.

Compared to the start of the year, the budget increased by $ 273,326 million, the priority of which were social programs such as REPRO II, PROGRESAR and PAMI and the service of acquisition and logistics and distribution of vaccines. against COVID-19.