WELLINGTON, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government squeezed out an operating surplus of just 9 million NZ dollars (6.5 million U.S. dollars) in the six month ending December last year, the New Zealand Treasury said Thursday.
However, the government's financial statements showed the surplus compared to a Treasury forecast from December of an operating deficit of 666 million NZ dollars (481.52 million U.S. dollars).
The "favorable variance" of 675 million NZ dollars (488.02 million U.S. dollars) was largely due to the higher than forecast core tax revenue and lower than forecast core expenses, said a Treasury statement.
Tax revenue was 313 million NZ dollars (226.29 million U.S. dollars), or 0.9 percent, higher than forecast, while core expenses at 38.1 billion NZ dollars (27.56 billion U.S. dollars) were 303 million NZ dollars (219.07 million U.S. dollars) lower than forecast.
The majority of this discrepancy in spending to forecast was due to the 7.8-mangitude earthquake that rocked the northeast of the South Island on Nov. 14 last year, as costs were to be quantified with enough certainty to include in the actual results.
Finance Minister Steven Joyce said the surplus did not appear much, but it was a significant milestone.
"This is the first time since 2008 that the government's books have been in surplus halfway through the year," Joyce said in a published speech to business people in Auckland.
The government had made a lot of progress tackling the deficit, which peaked at 18.4 billion NZ dollars (13.3 billion U.S. dollars) following the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 and the Global Financial Crisis, and turning it into a surplus of 1.8 billion NZ dollars (1.3 billion U.S. dollars) last year, said Joyce.
"It is still too early to be sure that a surplus will be achieved in the current financial year, particularly given the costs associated with the Kaikoura earthquakes," he said.
"However, surpluses are predicted to rise to 5.4 billion NZ dollars (3.9 billion U.S. dollars) by 2018-2019 and, provided they come to pass, that provides options for us as a country."
