ORANJESTAD — The government received more revenues from taxes in July compared to the same month last year. The increase of 8.3 percent (5.9 million florins) was mainly due to the tax on immovable goods and excise on beer. With the latter the total government revenues increased with 7.3 percent.

The government received 77.4 million florins on tax in total. The tax on immovable goods yielded 4.3 million florins and the excise on beer 1.3 million florins. The revenues from foreign currency commission also increased from 1.4 million to 4.4 million florins. The sales tax (bbo) yielded 700,000 florins more, in total 7.2 million florins. The government also received more revenues, namely 5.8 million florins, in July compared to the same month last year; a 7.3 percent increase to 85 million florins.

The Central Bank of Aruba (CBA) published this data yesterday along with other figures of the monthly report on July. The amount of money on Aruba decreased slightly with 1 million florins to 3.16 billion florins. Less money was received from abroad (8.9 million florins) but the national circulation of currency largely compensated this (increase of 7.9 million florins). That increase was mainly due to 6.5 million florins, which had nothing to do with loans, according to the Bank. For that matter more credit was extended locally (1.4 million florins), namely commercial loans (0.5 percent) and house mortgages (0.2 percent). Consumers borrowed less from the banks though (-0.2 percent).

Other news from the Central Bank regarded tourism, the most important economic sector of Aruba. As announced earlier the cruise tourism is recovering remarkably. July showed an increase of 8020 visitors, which is 156 percent more than July 2011. Compared to last year that growth materialized after a two-month decline. The number of cruise ships visiting Aruba also increased from six to eight. The market for stay over tourists showed a slight decline of 0.3 percent, especially due to less visitors from North America (-3.6 percent). Latin America showed a considerable increase of 16.3 percent but there were less tourists from Europe (-3.2 percent).