XN000022-1971-02-24 — Page 26

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Wednesday, February 24, 1971

EXPENDITURE FORECASTS UP TO 1974/75

Innovation In Dreft Estimates

Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Socretary, today drew the attention

of the Legislative Council to an inovation in the draft estimates which

included in the appendices forecast figures of estimated expenditure annually up to 1974/75.

These forecasts showed an increase in rocurrent expenditure from

$2,152 million next year to $2,813 million in 1974/75

per cent in three years.

——

an increase of 30

Capital expenditure was forecast to increase "slightly faster,"

from $784 million next year to $1,068 million in 1974/75. Total expenditure in 1974/75 was forecast at $3,881 million, These figures excluded the

operations of the Development Loan Fund and the Lotteries Fund.

Sir John stressed that the figures were "merely forecasts," not

proposals for the actual appropriation of funds. They had been compiled for

some years in the unpublished Five Year Forecasts of Revenue and Expenditure.

He asked the public's "indulgence" for not including the forecasts

of revenue also. That was "an exercise in crystal-gazing" which he should

not like "to put on public exhibition" for a number of reasons.

/The