The highest amount of allocations under the Appropriation Bill, which is to be presented to Parliament by Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera on October 09 has been made for the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Finance said today. The allocation for Defense in the year 2019 is Rs.306 billion, the Finance Ministry said in a statement. Next year’s annual state expenditure will be Rs 4,376 billion and the budget deficit will be Rs.644 billion which is 4.1% of the GDP. The Government revenue in the year 2014 was 11.5% of the GDP and, it was gradually increased after the unity government came in to power and, it is expected to increase to 15.1% of the GDP in 2019, the Finance Ministry said. At the same time, a surplus was reported for the time after 63 years in the Government’s Primary Balance in 2017 and, it is expected that this surplus will increase by 1.3% of the GDP in 2019. Rs.2, 057 billion has been allocated for debt servicing in 2019. This is the largest amount of money a government in the history of this country is compelled to bear in repaying its borrowings. Out of this amount, Rs.1, 271 should be paid locally next year while Rs.786 billion, which is equal to 4,650 million US dollars should be paid to foreign lenders. Accordingly, the Government expects to borrow Rs.1, 944 billion from local and foreign sources for its debt servicing including the financing of the budget deficit in 2019. Among the Government expenditures, Rs.1, 456 billion have been allocated for recurrent expenditure of the public sector while Rs.856 billion has been allocated for capital expenditure. The Government is to spend Rs.1, 000 billion for the salaries of 1.1 million public servants and 600,000 pensioners and an additional Rs.220 billion is allocated to provide public welfare such as Samurdhi allowance, school uniforms, free medicine , allowances for the elders, fertilizer subsidy, bag of nutritious food, payment for kidney patients and payments for the differently abled. Finance and Media Minister, Mangala Samaraweera has made allocations through the Appropriatio0n Bill substantially to implement major development projects which bring direct benefits to the people of this country. These include road development, housing development, irrigation and drinking water supply development. Rs.175 billion has been allocated to develop highways and complete the Southern Expressway development up to Mattala; to develop and complete Colombo Outer Circular Road from Kadawatha to Kerawalapitiya and construct the stretch of the Central Expressway from Kadawatha to Mirigama. This will also include the construction of the elevated Port Entry Road from Peliyagoda to Colombo International Financial City. In addition, Rs.50 billion has been allocated to implement several water supply schemes including the Jaffna Kilinochchi Water Supply System, Kelani River South Bank Water Supply scheme and Matale Water Supply system. Extra funds have been allocated for the development of the railway and road transport sectors in order to upgrade the strategic city development. The Budget will be presented in Parliament by Minister Mangala Samaraweera on November 05,2018