Lebanon’s fiscal deficit (Budgetary & Treasury) contracted by 18.32% year-on-year to around $2.39 billion during the first five months of the year 2019, compared to $2.92 billion a year earlier. In addition, the primary balance (Budget & Treasury) registered a deficit of $38 million, in comparison with a larger deficit of around $354 million by May 2018. In detail, government revenues (Budget & Treasury) fell by 6.90% y-o-y to just above $4.46 billion owing to the 9.15% decrease in non-tax revenues to $0.71 billion outweighing the 0.57% increase in tax revenues to $3.55 billion. The improvement in tax revenues comes as a result of the 7.04% expansion in miscellaneous tax revenues to $2.01 billion outweighing the 8.45% dip in VAT revenues to $1.01 billion and the 3.49% decrease in customs revenues to $527.54 million. On the other hand, non-tax revenues were dragged by the 8.47% contraction in telecom revenues to $291.34 million. In parallel, government expenditures (Budget & Treasury) (including debt service) fell sharply by 11.23% on an annual basis to around $6.85 billion by May 2019. In fact, general expenditures fell by 8.68% to $4.00 billion with budget expenditures over the previous years dropping by 0.75% to $1.00 billion and transfers to Electricité Du Liban (EDL) shedding by 3.59% to around $605.64 million. Concurrently, treasury expenditures fell by 34.62% y-o-y to $506.26 million. Debt service continued to weigh heavily on the government’s finances although it dropped by 8.52% y-o-y to around $2.35 billion, from $2.57 billion a year before. Consequently, the deficit to total expenditures ratio fell to 34.83% by May 2019, from 37.86% a year ago. In addition, the linearly extrapolated deficit to GDP ratio based on May’s figures is estimated at 9.83%, compared to a target deficit to GDP ratio of 7.59% in the 2019 draft budget law.