Statistics Iceland releases now an aggregated overview of quarterly central and local government non-financial accounts for the 4th quarter and accumulated figures for the year 2004. The figures are on accruals basis. These quarterly overviews are published 90 days after the end of the respective quarter.

The accounts for the central government are based on information from the Government Financial Management Authority but the data for local government are based on a sample of accounts from seven municipalities with 50% of the population in Iceland. These have been grossed up by Statistics Iceland. So far the break-down of the data is rather limited but there are plans for providing more detailed data in the future.

According to these preliminary data the central government revenue for the 4th quarter of 2004 amounted to 82.1 billion ISK and the financial balance was positive by 9.1 billion ISK. Local government revenue is estimated as 35.4 billion ISK and the financial balance was negative by 4.2 billion ISK. In total the financial balance of general government was positive by 4.9 billion ISK, 4.2% of current revenue and 0.6% of annual GDP.

In the figures presented here, both revenue and expenditure figures are recorded on  accruals basis whereas the monthly figures published by the the Government Financial Authority are on  cash basis. Accruals basis means that flows are recorded when they are established regardless of when the actual payment is made. The data presented here, both for central and local government, are preliminary. In particular, the information on investment of the local government is sketchy.

Accumulated data for the whole year render the following overview of the general government finances.

According to these data, the general government accounts on accruals basis showed a deficit of 5.7 billion ISK, which corresponds to 0.7% cent of GDP. As a share of current revenue, the financial balance was negative by 1.4% with the local government showing a considerably large deficit while the central government was in a surplus of 0.5% of GDP.

Statistics (See: "General government quarterly finance accounts 2004")