The only land sale receipts that are counted in current savings are for land sold with tenures of less than 10 years.

Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam disclosed this in Parliament on Thursday in response to a question from Workers Party MP Sylvia Lim on how much the Government has in its current reserves.

Ms Lim had asked for clarification on some 'major items of receipts such as the land sales revenue'.

'In the last two years, I think collectively it was about $18 billion and for the next year it's anticipated to be another $8 billion,' she said.

'So how is this not factored in? How does this affect the calcuation?'

In reply, Mr Tharman said these estimates for land receipts 'puzzled' him.

'We certainly do not have those $18 billion of land receipts in current reserves,' he said.

'The only thing that the Government takes into revenues for its current term are land sales of less than 10 years, which is a very small amount.'

All other land revenues goes into past reserves - 'as we've explained in the House before, in fact last year', Mr Tharman said.

He did not reveal the size of the current reserves, but reiterated that the Government has 'enough accumulated savings' to meet the deficits it will run last year and this year, which total $10.8 billion.

This is because the Government ran a surplus of $7.7 billion in 2007, and over the last three years it has also obtained $3.7 billion in accumulated savings from its statutory boards, Mr Tharman explained.