Maldives government has submitted the proposed state budget for next year to the parliament Wednesday which is reportedly over MVR1 billion less than the present year.
The finance ministry has been tight-lipped over the proposed budget, but according to sources, the government has submitted a MVR26 billion for 2017 as opposed to MVR27.5 billion for this year.
A finance ministry official told Avas that the government would propose the budget to the parliament next week.
Finance minister Mohamed Munavvar had said earlier that the government would look to minimize recurrent expenditure and instead boost funding for infrastructure development.
The parliament had approved a MVR27.5 billion budget for this year with an estimated revenue of MVR 22.8 billion. The government had estimated the deficit for this year would be MVR3.4 billion, which is six percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, the deficit is expected to exceed the figure as state revenue has fallen short of forecasts.
