Ukrainian parliament approves 2015 budget adjustments
KYIV. March 3 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada has backed the government adjustments of the 2015 state budget; budget revenues are set to grow by 22.5 billion hryvni and expenditures will be up 35.7 billion hryvni.
Some 273 deputies voted for the budget adjustment bill, a condition for the $17.5 billion IMF loan under a new EFF stand-by arrangement, an Interfax correspondent reports.
The state budget deficit will increase from 3.7% to 4.1% of GDP but due to the reduced support to Naftogaz Ukrainy and the Pension Fund the total deficit of the public management sector will go down from 13.5% of GDP last year to 8.8% this year, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said
She added that the hryvnia fall (from 17 to 21.7 hryvni to the dollar) was a factor of the budget adjustment. For instance, it has increased state debt service expenditures by 21.5 billion hryvni.
A source of budget revenue growth is an increase of rental payments on state oil and gas companies, which will subsidize the population after a rise of electricity fees, by 12.5 billion hryvni to 25 billion hryvni, the minister continued.
Spending related to people displaced by the conflict in Ukraine will grow by 2.9 billion hryvni to 3.4 billion hryvni, Jaresko said.
While drawing up the 2015 budget adjustments, the Ukrainian government downgraded the GDP fall forecast to 5.5% (from 1.721 trillion hryvni to 1.85 trillion hryvni in the nominal value) and the inflation forecast from 13.1% to 26%.
The 2015 state budget law was passed late last year; it had 475.9 billion hryvni revenue, 527.9 billion hryvni expenditures and 63.7 billion hryvni utmost deficit.
Last year, state budget revenue grew 5.3% to 357.1 billion hryvni, and expenditures were up 6.6% to 430.2 billion hryvni.
