The Nepali government Saturday announced an annual budget of over 126.88 billion Nepali rupees (1. 81 billion US dollars) for the new fiscal year (July 16, 2005-July 15, 2006).

"Of the total earmarked expenditure, over 75.85 billion Nepali rupees (1.08 billion US dollars) is for financing recurrent expenditure, while around 37.23 billion Nepali rupees (531.86 million US dollars) is for capital expenditure," said Finance Minister Madhukar SJB Rana while announcing the annual budget.

"The remaining 13.80 billion Nepali rupees (197.14 million US dollars) is allocated for principal payment of both domestic and foreign loans," Rana added.

In order to meet the expenses, the government has targeted to collect 77.75 billion Nepali rupees (1.1 billion US dollars) from the existing sources of revenue, 18.68 billion Nepali rupees (266. 86 million US dollars) from foreign grant and 14.53 billion Nepali rupees (207.57 million US dollars) from foreign loan.

"There will be a deficit of 15.9 billion Nepali rupees (227.14 million US dollars) in the fiscal 2005/2006," Rana noted.

Source: Xinhua