St Vincent’s economy improves during first nine months of 2014
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) — The economy of St Vincent and the Grenadines performed better in almost every area during the first nine months of 2014, compared to the same period in 2013.
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dr Ralph Gonsalves told reporters on Monday that total revenue and grants have seen an increase of five per cent from EC$383.7 million (one EC dollar = US$0.37 cents) in 2013 to EC$405.9 million in 2014.
Current revenue was up almost 10 per cent from EC$341 million to EC$4375.2 million.
Total expenditure also increased, moving from EC$421 million to EC$444.2 million, while recurrent expenditure also saw a year-on-year increase from EC$358.5 million to EC$379.2 million.
Gonsalves said during the period under review, capital expenditure moved from EC$62.5 million in 2013 to EC$65 million in 2014.
And while the current balance was still in deficit, that deficit decreased from EC$17.4 million during the first nine months of 2013 to a deficit of EC$4 million during the corresponding period of 2014.
The overall balance also increased slightly, moving from EC$37.3 million to EC$38 million.
Gonsalves said there was an increase in most categories of taxes, stating this represents economic growth and better collection.
Taxes on income and profits, which include personal income taxes, company tax and withholding taxes, increased from EC$77.6 million to EC$83.3 million.
Taxes on properties increased from EC$2.34 million to EC$2.8 million.
According to Gonsalves, this does not mean that people will have a high property tax burden after the reform of the property tax law.
“It is that the net has been spread wider, because there were a lot of people who were not on the tax roll,” he said.
Taxes on domestic collections increased by 2.6 per cent, while domestic VAT had increased by 7.5 per cent, from EC$48.37 million to EC$52.01 million.
He said while citizens continue to ask what is being done about poor road conditions and how that relates to taxes on vehicles, the Government collected EC$9 million-plus for all of 2013, and expects to collect just over EC$10 million this year.
