By Dennis Gadil

The Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) has said stronger economic growth during the second half of the year would enable government to register a lower-than-expected budget gap of P248.3 billion for 2009, which is P1.7 billion "better" than the programmed deficit of P250 billion.

DBCC data showed the 0.7-percent improvement in the budget deficit goal is based on its projected deficit of P94.9 billion for July to December this year, 38 percent better than the P153.4 billion shortfall registered from January to June.

For the second half of the year, the DBCC expects tax collections to improve by posting an increase of 15.9 percent to P563.8 billion from P486.4 billion in the first half and non-tax revenues surging by 58 percent to P93.9 billion from P59.3 billion.

It likewise expects government to bring in fresh revenues of P28.3 billion from its sale of three big-ticket items. These are the sprawling Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) property in Taguig City , its stake in the PNOC-Exploration Corp., and the Fujimi property in Tokyo .

The government originally set a price tag of P30 billion for its privatization effort this year.

The government intends to spend P752.65 billion from July to December or 7.6 percent higher than the P699.11 billion it spent from January to June.

Finance officials believe that the country’s domestic output as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) growth would recover in the second half after a miserable performance of 0.4 percent GDP in the first quarter.

Many economists estimated that the economy grew 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent during the second quarter.

The disappointing firs quarter growth prompted the DBCC to cut its earlier GDP forecast of 3.1 percent to 4.1 percent to a new target of 0.8 percent to 1.8 percent.

The country’s budget shortfall surged by 752 percent to P153.4 billion in the first half of the year from P18 billion in the same period last year.

Revenues declined by 4.3 percent to P545.7 billion from P570 billion while expenditures jumped by 18.9 percent to P699.1 billion from P588 billion.

The government is staring at a new deficit goal of P250 billion or 3.2 percent of the GDP, which is 267 percent higher than the shortfall of P68.1 billion or 0.9 percent of GDP registered last year.

In 2010, the budget deficit is seen to slow down between P220 billion to P230 billion or 2.3 percent of GDP as the government continues its pump priming program through its stimulus spending.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. has disclosed that his agency is preparing a second economic stimulus package or Economic Resiliency Package (ERP) Part 2 worth P169 billion to P200 billion in the 2010 national budget, which is expected to hit P1.5 trillion from the current outlay of P1.415 trillion