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177
Financial Year 1950/51.
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The actual revenue and expenditure for the financial year just ending will not of course be known for some time but the revised estimate of revenue is $274,240,876 and of expenditure $250,448,999, thus providing for a surplus of $23,791,877. But for certain adjustments in respect of loan advances, the surplus would have been considerably larger.
In winding up the Budget debate last year it was proposed that, in the course of the year, part of the loan advances should be set off against the surplus which had been accumulated. It will be recollected that it only proved possible to issue locally a first instalment of 50 million of the $150 million which was the target figure of the rehabilitation loan. The prospects of raising any further loans were far from good so the balance of the loan expenditure was financed from surplus funds. On 31st March, 1950, these loan advances totalled $59,434,977.
Directly it became clear that there would be a fairly substantial surplus at the end of the current financial year, it was decided, with the approval of Finance Committee and of the Secretary of State, to charge off some
50 million of these advances to expenditure. This $50 million has accordingly been included in the revised estimate of expenditure and it is noteworthy that as a result of financing rehabilitation expenditure in this manner the Colony has been saved over $5 million in interest and the public debt also stands at a lower figure than would otherwise have been the case.
The revised revenue figure is approximately $70 million in excess of the approved estimate. This estimate was prepared as far back as January, 1950, At that time, the political outlook continued to be uncertain, while owing to the blockade of Shanghai by the Nationalists, the whole of the godown space in the Colony was taken up and the banks were forced to refuse to finance further imports unless evidence was furnished that storage space would be available. A11 this gave rise to a certain degree of concern and it was considered prudent to allow for a substantial drop in revenue. In actual fact, revenue did not come in very satisfactorily in the early part of the year and on cight occasions weekly receipts were below the average required to produce the total revenue estimated for. Later a tendency developed, as in the previous year, to pay local duty on consignments which normally pass through the Colony in bond. Moreover, the re-opening of the port of Shanghai quickly eased the congestion in the local godowns and trade rose to new levels with the result that it seems highly probable that the revenue for 1950/51 will exceed even the high figure reached in 1949/50.
Duties as a whole were responsible for nearly half the revenue surplus, tobacco again being a large contributor, with every prospect of exceeding the estimate by at least $7 million. Receipts from liquor duties and duties on hydrocarbon oils have also been at a higher level than was anticipated, the effect of the increased motor traffic and the increased number of motor junks having been under-estimated.
All the main Heads are expected to exceed the estimates, though a short fall is probable on some sub-heads such as stamp duty. Estate duty yielded an unexpectedly high total as a result of a payment on account of 2 million in
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