The Finance Ministry has released the Weekly Fiscal Development Report for the first eight weeks of the year after a two-month hiatus.

According to the report, the government earned MVR 7.7 billion while MVR 6.9 billion was spent, including on loans and investments.

MVR 2.8 billion was spent on government operating expenses while MVR 2.6 billion was spent on salaries. The total amount spent on recurrent expenditure is MVR 5.4 billion.

The report indicated that the government earned MVR 1.7 billion more in the first eight weeks compared to the same period last year.

This was due to an increase of MVR 10 billion in tax revenue. Taxes stood at MVR 6.4 billion while non-tax revenue stood at MVR 1.2 billion.

Tax revenue increased mainly due to record-breaking tourism and higher tourism-related tax revenue.

The bulk of the non-tax revenue came from acquisition costs of MVR 312 million for resort development and airport development fees.

With expenditure lower than revenue, the overall balance, excluding finance and interest expense, ended the first eight weeks with a surplus of MVR 1.8 billion.

A budget of MVR 64 billion was passed for this year. This includes MVR 12.9 billion budgeted to repay loans.