The Executive Yuan on Friday announced the budget and annual expenditure estimate for fiscal 2018, with a slight increase in national expenditure — up 0.6 percent compared with fiscal 2017 — to NT$1.9 trillion (US$62.7 billion).
The Executive Yuan plans large-scale increases in public construction and technological development expenditures, with the former given 16.3 percent more than this year and the latter increasing by 10 percent.
Both budgets included funds from the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program.
Social welfare received NT$489 billion, the greatest source of expenditure in the budget, with the Ministry of National Defense budget estimated at NT$330 billion, the Executive Yuan said.
Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told the defense ministry to implement stricter controls on personnel fees and consider actual needs.
The Ministry of Education received NT$292 billion — a 3.3 percent increase — including funds from the infrastructure project, the Executive Yuan said.
“Governmental money should be husbanded and used precisely where needed. We hope all departments will base their budget on the Zero-based Budgeting principle,” Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said, encouraging governmental departments to consult previous funding if an important project or recently passed policy is in need of funding.
During the meeting, Lin said that the government should endeavor to compress the difference between income and expenditure to within NT$200 billion, including special budgets, to show the Yuan’s resolve to be fiscally disciplined.
Expected income for fiscal 2018 stands at NT$1.8 trillion, a 2.7 percent increase on this year, the report said, while expected expenditure stands at NT$1.9 trillion, NT$383 billion less than this year.
Debt outstanding by the end of next year is expected to rise by 0.4 percent to NT$5.69 trillion, 33.4 percent of the past three year’s GDP combined.
According to Article 5 of the Public Debt Act (公共債務法), the central government’s debt ceiling is limited to 40.6 percent of the combined GDP of the previous three years.
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