State Budget: A Delicate Balancing Act
The state budget has managed to end the year with a deficit of 6% of GDP, a commendable performance given the global situation, thanks to its ability to control its expenses. The heaviest expenditure item is the remuneration of public officials, which consumed 22,273.5 billion dinars, accounting for 39.4% of total budget expenditures. This represents a 2.6% increase compared to 2023, but remains significantly lower than the 23,711.1 billion dinars programmed in the 2024 finance law, resulting in a savings of 1,437.6 billion dinars.
This has allowed for a small margin of maneuver, which has been used, among other things, to allocate more funds than expected to other chapters, such as management expenses (+233.3 billion dinars to 2,771.7 billion dinars) and investment (+760.8 billion dinars to 6,031.8 billion dinars).
For 2025, the estimated envelope for remuneration is set at 24,388.6 billion dinars. This year, we believe it will be difficult to achieve a savings as significant as that of 2024. The reason is threefold. Firstly, the integration of the first batch of contract teachers, numbering around 9,000, will offset the positive effect of the voluntary retirement plan. We also have the regularization of the situation of construction site employees, as well as the already announced recruitments for the year. Finally, the President of the Republic has given the green light for the administration to recruit, a first in many years.
In contrast, and with resources still under pressure, we believe that this year's budget will mark the beginning of a dynamic opposite to that of 2024. There will likely be a deceleration in areas such as management or investment expenses in order to ensure sufficient means for civil servants' salaries. Ultimately, tax pressure remains an obligatory passage for the executive to honor its commitments.
