Dr Peter Bushnell
Deputy Secretary to the Treasury
The Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the five months ended 30 November 2008 were released by the Treasury today.
The monthly financial statements are compared against the monthly forecast tracks based on the 2008 Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) released on 6 October 2008.
The Budget Policy Statement published on 18 December 2008 included updated economic and fiscal forecasts. As the December Update did not include detailed fiscal forecasts, the monthly financial statements will continue to be measured against PREFU.
Results for the five months ended 30 November 2008#
- OBEGAL was a deficit of $0.2 billion and was $0.8 billion lower than forecast in PREFU. This is primarily due to core Crown tax revenue of $22.4 billion, which was $0.9 billion lower than forecast. This comprised lower GST revenue of $0.6 billion mainly due to different forecasting assumptions made around the phasing of GST revenue (GST receipts are on track), as well as lower-than-forecast terminal tax assessments of $0.3 billion.
- The operating balance deficit of $5.7 billion was $7.1 billion lower than the PREFU forecast surplus of $1.4 billion. The two main contributors to this lower-than-expected result were:
- The NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS Fund), ACC and EQC continued to have losses on their investment portfolios that were larger than expected ($4.2 billion, $0.6 billion and $0.3 billion respectively). This was partially offset by a $0.9 billion gain on the Reserve Bank’s financial instrument portfolio, and
- GSF and ACC also recorded losses of $1.0 billion and $1.4 billion respectively as a result of changes in valuations of their long term liabilities.
- Gross sovereign-issued debt (GSID) was $8.6 billion greater than forecast in PREFU at $38.0 billion (21.1% of GDP). This was due to greater-than-forecast derivative liabilities ($3.5 billion), a Reserve Bank bill tender relating to Residential Mortgage Backed Securities ($2.4 billion), additional issuance of Treasury Bills ($1.2 billion) and valuation adjustments to Government Stock ($0.3 billion). Most of these factors have a broadly corresponding impact on the Crown’s financial asset portfolio and so have minimal impact on net core Crown debt.
- Net core Crown debt was $1.5 billion less than forecast in PREFU at $3.4 billion due in the main to valuation changes in net derivative holdings.
|
Year to date |
Full Year | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2008 Actual[2] |
November 2008 Forecast[2] |
Variance $m |
Variance % |
PREFU June 2009 Forecast[3] |
|
| $ million | |||||
| Core Crown | |||||
| Core Crown revenue (excl. NZS Fund) [1] | 24,331 | 25,324 | (993) | (3.9) | 61,102 |
| Core Crown expenses | 25,085 | 25,116 | 31 | 0.1 | 62,359 |
| NZS Fund operating balance | (2,806) | 385 | (3,191) | (828.8) | 986 |
| Core Crown residual cash | (5,663) | (5,294) | (369) | (7.0) | (5,909) |
| GSID (excl. settlement cash) | 37,965 | 29,333 | (8,632) | (29.4) | 32,087 |
| as a percentage of GDP | 21.1% | 16.3% | 17.4% | ||
| Net Core Crown debt | 3,446 | 4,916 | 1,470 | 29.9 | 5,207 |
| as a percentage of GDP | 1.9% | 2.7% | 2.8% | ||
| Net Core Crown debt (incl. NZS Fund) | (8,418) | (9,162) | (744) | (8.1) | (10,430) |
| as a percentage of GDP | (4.7)% | (5.1)% | (5.7)% | ||
| Total Crown | |||||
| OBEGAL | (175) | 576 | (751) | (130.4) | (64) |
| Net gains / (losses) and other items | (5,548) | 822 | (6,370) | 1,973 | |
| Operating Balance | (5,723) | 1,398 | (7,121) | (509.4) | 1,909 |
1 For the purposes of this indicator the NZS Fund is treated as a third party (ie, its revenue is not included but the tax it pays is).
2 Using GDP for the year ended 30 September 2008 of $179,538 million (Source: Statistics New Zealand).
3 Using forecast GDP for the year ended 30 June 2009 of $184,390 million (Source: Treasury).
ENDS
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