Swedish gov't surplus in May bigger than expected

Tweet
Facebook
LinkedIn
Send to

While the European Commission frets about how to deal with expenditure by the Italian government, further north in Sweden, the country's Debt Office has recorded a central government payments surplus of SEK64.2bn for May alone - a third higher than previous estimates of SEK40.2bn.

The Debt Office stated that the difference was mainly due to the Riksbank, the central bank, repaying foreign currency loans previously borrowed from the Debt Office. Also, lending to government agencies was SEK19.4bn lower than forecast, mainly due to SEK19.9bn lower on-lending to the Riksbank.

On the so-called primary balance, the difference between central government income and expenditure was SEK4.9bn higher than forecast, mainly due to some SEK4bn higher than expected tax revenue.

Over the 12 months to the end of May 2019, the government recorded a payments surplus of SEK93.8bn. Total central government debt at the end of the month was SEK1.078trn.

Central government net borrowing requirement¹ (SEK million)
	Outcome May	Forecast May	Deviation May	Acc. Dev²	Outcome 12-month
Net borrowing requirement	-64 217	-40 185	-24 032	-32 392	-93 760
Primary balance³	-47 080	-42 191	-4 890	-10 534	-89 779
Net lending to agencies etc.⁴	-21 259	-1 853	-19 406	-23 317	-22 769
Interest payments on central government debt	4 123	3 859	264	1 459	18 788
- Interest on loans in SEK	3 623	906	2 717	-415	15 038
- Interest on loans in foreign currency	92	-66	158	-6	-449
- Realised currency gains and losses	408	3 019	-2 611	1 880	4 198
¹The net borrowing requirement corresponds to the budget balance with opposite sign.