The government may keep its budget deficit within the P250-billion target this year, helped by dividends and interest savings, Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said yesterday.

“It is still possible that we won’t exceed the budget deficit target on non-tax revenues, and mainly from dividends from state firms,” Beltran said.

The government expects to receive P15 billion of dividends this year compared with the P4 billion it had budgeted, Beltran said. Interest savings on debt payments had also reached P21 billion as of September and might further increase, he said.

Faltering tax revenue amid the global economic slowdown has prompted the Finance Department to sell dollar-denominated bonds overseas three times this year.

The government had a nine-month deficit of P237.5 billion in the January-to-September period, 95 percent of its full-year target.

The might sell $500 million worth of yen-denominated debt, or samurai bonds, in “early” 2010, Finance Undersecretary Rosalia de Leon said this month. The government sold $1 billion of dollar bonds last month, adding to the $750 million it sold in July and to the $1.5 billion it sold in January. Bloomberg