The narrowing of the deficit is due to rising government revenues, which amounted to NIS 231.5 billion in the first seven months of 2021, the Finance Ministry reports.
The cumulative deficit in Israel for the twelve months to the end of July 2021 was 9.3% of GDP, down from 10.1% at the end of June, 10.5% at the end of May and 11.7% of GDP at the end of 2020, the Ministry of Finance Account General reports.
To a great extent the narrowing of the deficit can be attributed to rising government revenues, which amounted to NIS 231.5 billion in the first seven months of 2021, up 29.5% from NIS 203.3 billion in the corresponding period of 2020.
In July expenditure fell by 0.3% as a percentage of GDP but in the first seven months of 2021 expenditure rose to NIS 275.9 billion, up 10.4% from the same period last year, mainly due to economic assistance due to the Covid pandemic.
The Ministry of Finance also reported that it has used 79% of the economic assistance allocated for alleviating the Covid crisis - NIS 159 billion out of NIS 203.3 billion.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 8, 2021
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Avigdor Liberman Photo: Lior Mizrachi