The United Nations is running a deficit of 230 million U.S. dollars, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday, and may run out of money by the end of October.

In a letter intended for the 37,000 employees at the UN secretariat and obtained by AFP, Guterres said unspecified "additional stop-gap measures" would have to be taken to ensure salaries and entitlements are paid.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said 129 countries had paid their dues for 2019 so far, which amounted to almost two billion U.S. dollars.

"Member States have paid only 70 percent of the total amount needed for our regular budget operations in 2019. This translates into a cash shortage of 230 million U.S. dollars at the end of September. We run the risk of depleting our backup liquidity reserves by the end of the month," said Guterres.

To cut costs, Guterres mentioned postponing conferences and meetings and reducing services, while also restricting official travel to only essential activities and taking measures to save energy.

UN peacekeeping missions are funded by a separate budget, which was 6.7 billion U.S. dollars for the year to June 30, 2019, and 6.51 billion U.S. dollars for the year to June 30, 2020.

The top contributing countries are Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Rwanda. They pay their troops according to their national salary scales and are reimbursed by the United Nations. As of July 2019, the United Nations paid 1,428 U.S. dollars a month per soldier.

The United Nations says its peacekeeping operations cost less than half of one percent of world military expenditures.

(With input from AFP and Reuters)