Lebanon’s fiscal deficit (Budgetary & Treasury) widened by 820.44% in January 2020 to around $670 million, compared to $73 million a year earlier. The primary balance (Budget & Treasury) was a deficit of $326 million, in comparison with a surplus of $232 million in January 2019. In detail, government revenues (Budget & Treasury) fell by 10.77% y-o-y to around $1.02 billion owing to a 10.49% drop in tax revenues to $807.82 million and a 35.07% nosedive in non-tax revenues to $143.92 million. The decline in tax revenues came as a result of the 28.97% dip in VAT revenues to $216.94 million and a 37.82% decrease in customs revenues to $66.15 million, eclipsing the 6.93% expansion in miscellaneous tax revenues to $524.73 million. The drop in non-tax revenues, on the other hand is mainly attributed to some 20.24% contraction in telecom revenues to $66.33 million. Concurrently, government expenditures (Budget & Treasury) (including debt service) rose by 38.98% on an annual basis to about $1.69 billion in January 2020. In fact, general expenditures soared by 56.58% to $1.25 billion, in part owing to a 188.46% rise in transfers to Electricité Du Liban (EDL) to $189.95 million and a 101.83% increase in budget expenditures over previous years to around $629.33 million. On the other hand, treasury expenditures sank by 15.93% y-o-y to $94.22 million. Debt service continued to weigh heavily on the government’s finances and grew by 12.96% y-o-y to around $344 million, from $305 million a year before. Consequently, the deficit to total expenditures ratio widened to 39.64% in January 2020, compared to 5.99% in January 2019.