Govt borrows more money to address deficit
The government needs 2,420 billion kip to respond to budget expenditure that occurred in the first quarter of this year (January to March), a government leader has said. Of this figure, 957.7 billion kip is owed from the budget deficit in Q1 and the rest constitutes the government’s obligations in paying off loans and bonds. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mr Somdy Duangdy told the ongoing National Assembly session recently that the government would have to source more funding from loans and bonds to deal with the deficit and maintain financial liquidity. He said the finance ministry had sourced 2,442 billion kip to pay off the deficit incurred in Q1. Of this, 592 billion kip was sourced from loans to fund development projects and the rest was mobilised from domestic sources.
