Finance Minister: for the first time, the accounts of the Public State Budget were audited for the next year directly

Finance Minister: for the first time, the accounts of the Public State Budget were audited for the next year directly [1]

Finance Minister, Dr. Mohammed al-Hussein described Law No./40/ dated 26/12/2007 which was issued by President Bashar al-Assad , containing thebudget, and auditing the accounts of the Public State Budget for the year 2006 as unprecedented because it is the first time theaccounts of the budget were audited for the next year directly… Mr. president also issued the decrees No. 488, 489, 490 dated 26/12/2007 . Click more..

Dr. al-Hussein indicated that the above mentioned law contains the fundamental indicators of the financial performance for the year 2006, including the rate of execution of the current budget which reached to 103% , and the actual expenditure reached to SP 317.2 billions compared to the estimated which was SP 307.9 billions.

Also the rate of the execution of the investment budget reached to 94% , and the actual expenditure reached to SP 176.4 billions compared to the estimated which was SP 187 billions.

The minister pointed out that the rate of execution of the Public State Budget for the year 2006 reached to 99.74%,while the rate of execution of the local current revenues of taxes and duties reached to 122% where the actual outcome reached to SP 297 billions compared to the estimated which was SP 243 billions, also the rate of execution of the local investment revenues (economic surpluses of governmental institutions and corporations) reached to 72%, and the actual revenue was about SP 138 billions compared to the estimated which was about SP 193 billions.

The external loans were estimated near SP 19.2 billions while the external actual borrowing reached to SP 14.1 billions. The final actual deficiency of Public State Budget for the year 2006 reached to SP 44.6 billions or relatively about 2.6% of GDP for the year 2006, which reached near SP 1700 billions, and the rate of actual growth in the fixed prices of GDP reached to 5.1%.

Dr. al-Hussein hoped that the government would maintain these positive indicators in the next few years and work to improve them, referring that decreasing the available national resources is due to the decrease of oil revenues and economic surpluses, which certainly will effect on the indicators of public finance. However, the government will work on controlling these effects and maintaining the growth process of Syrian economic which has been launched recently. The minister pointed out that Mr. president also issued the decrees No. 488, 489, 490 dated 26/12/2007.

Decree No./488/ includes organizing the accounting and financial affairs in the public bodies of administrative sector, but decree No./489/ includes the financial system of economic nature, and decree No./490/ includes the accounting system of public bodies of economic nature.

Dr. al-Hussein referred that issuing of these three important decrees considered as substitution for the financial and accounting systems which are effective since thirty years or even more. These decrees will be effective simultaneously with activating the new primary financial law that issued by legislative decree No./54/ dated 1/10/2006, which will be in effect at 1/1/2008.

Finance Minister concluded his statement by referring to the important role of these decrees in activating new accounting methods in the Syrian accounting system, pointing out that the Ministry of Finance issued the executive instructions of these decrees.