Belarus drafts 2025 budget with deficit of 1.6% of GDP

MINSK. Aug 21 (Interfax) - Belarus has drafted its 2025 budget with a deficit of 4.5 billion Belarusian rubles, or 1.6% of projected GDP, Finance Minister Yuri Seliverstov said.

"According to our estimates, we'll have revenues of about 45.5 billion Belarusian rubles, spending of 50 billion Belarusian rubles and a deficit of about 4.5 billion Belarusian rubles, or 1.6% of GDP. Unfortunately, we were not able to plan all expenditure without a deficit, we'll have to borrow on the domestic market, and work on borrowing from outside. This is our standard practice," the state agency BelTA quoted Seliverstov as saying before a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

"The country has the instruments to finance the budget deficit: the government has surpluses, it has the ability to raise money on the domestic and foreign markets. This is not easy, but work we understand and can plan," he said.

Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said during the government meeting that the "2025 budget is based on the target scenario of forecast parameters." He said budget expenditures on the social sphere would be almost 14% higher than this year's estimated total, spending on public sector wages would be increased by 14.7% and that higher spending on social benefits and pensions was planned.

The 2024 budget projects at a deficit of 4.75 billion Belarusian rubles with expenditures of 44.66 billion Belarusian rubles and revenues of 39.9 billion Belarusian rubles.

The Finance Ministry has not published data on budget execution since 2022.