Pakistan budget deficit projected to increase to 6% in 2019: Fitch.

LONDON -- Fitch Solutions, in a report released on Monday, said it projects Pakistan's budget deficit to be 6% in the current financial year 2018-19, compared to 5.8% in the previous FY2017-18. The government will probably have to slash its expenditures over the forthcoming months as it focuses to obtain funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the bailout programme due to weak revenue growth, said the research agency.

It warned that the widening current accounting deficit, weakening currency and sliding foreign exchange reserves indicate that the current fiscal trend where expenditures outmatch revenue growth is unsustainable. The agency revised its projections for the budget deficit as a share of GDP to clock in at 6% in FY2018- 19 (July-June) from 5.8% previously, due to the limited extent to how much the government can decrease expenditure and weak revenue growth. Pakistan's budget deficit as a percentage of GDP swelled to 6.6% in FY2017- 18 from 4.6% in FY2015- 16, as expenditure on average rose by 13.7% per annum, outmatching revenue at 8.5%, Fitch noted.

This trend persisted in the first quarter (JulySeptember) of current FY2018-19, as expenditures soared by 12.1% year-onyear (YoY), while revenue rose by 7.5% YoY in the corresponding period. Consequently, the budget deficit soared by 22.9% YoY to Rs541.7 billion in the first quarter of FY2018- 19 against Rs440.8 billion in the corresponding period of FY2017-18. The research agency cautioned the...