Government spending was up by almost 10 percent for the first quarter of 2009, but its revenue fell by 8.1 percent over the same period, according to the latest figures released by the Department of Statistics.

The Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics report revealed that central Government expenditure rose by 9.6 percent for the first three months of the year, with capital expenditure up by 37.6 percent and wages, salaries and employee overheads increasing by 17 percent during the respective time.

The global economic crisis has resulted in job cuts across the Island over the past year and has caused Government's revenue base to contract.

Total current revenue fell eight percent, driven by a decline in hotel occupancy tax of 61.5 percent, stamp duty by 23.3 percent and international company tax by 21.1 percent.

Total expenditure has been on the rise since 2005, with only three quarters during that period when it went into reverse - the last time by -12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, and the biggest increase of 73.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Wages, salaries and employee overheads have also been in the plus column over the past four years, again reaching their highest level in the fourth quarter last year, with the second quarter of 2008 the only time it dropped into the negative with -0.2 percent.

Another alarming statistic was that total current revenue has been declining since last year's second quarter, having enjoyed a sustained period of growth between the third quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of 2008.

By the end of 2007, the money was rolling into Government's coffers, to the tune of an 81.3 percent increase in the closing quarter, but one year on, that figure had gone into reverse by -36.3 percent.

Other revealing statistics showed that the total amount of imports had fallen by 22.3 percent for the first quarter of 2009 - representing the largest drop since the opening quarter of 2005, and the fourth consecutive decline in as many quarters, having peaked at 22.9 percent in the first quarter of 2006.

Transport equipment (-32.2 percent), basic materials and semi-manufacturing (-27.6 percent), finished equipment (26.8 percent) and clothing (24.1 percent) attributed for most of the of the decline.