English flags 'challenge' to budget surplus

Wed, 19 Nov 2014

By Jonathan Underhill Finance Minister Bill English is warning next month's half yearly fiscal and economic update from the Treasury may not forecast a budget surplus, saying that returning the government's accounts to surplus in 2015 will be "a challenge", given the decline in commodity prices and weak global inflation. The Treasury projected a surplus of $297 million in the year ending June 30, 2015, on an operating balance before gains and losses basis in the pre-election economic and fiscal update released in August. That was reduced...

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