AUSTRALIA

Budget Moves Into Surplus: The Australian government announced a surplus of $445 million in its budget for April, narrowing the deficit for the year ending June 30 to $9.13 billion. That compares to a cumulative deficit of $9.58 billion at the end of March and to a cumulative deficit of $6.99 billion deficit a year ago. The government reported outlays of $5.98 billion in the latest month, contrasted with revenue of $6.44 billion. It is estimating that the deficit for this fiscal year will be $11.9 billion. The state of the government’s financial position has been a recent concern of debt markets, where participants fear that government commitments to reduce the budget deficit will give way to political pressures to keep spending high during the weak economic recovery.