Kazakh parliament adopts 2015 govt budget with 2.3% deficit
MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) - The upper chamber of Kazakhstan's parliament has adopted the Law on the Government Budget for 2015-2017, an Interfax correspondent reports from the parliament session.
"In order to align the three-year budget with the new global situation and to implement the president's instruction, we have revised the budget targets for 2015-2017," the lower house of parliament's Committee for Finance and Budget has said.
Budget revenue, excluding transfers, has been set at 4.16 trillion tenge for 2015 or 178.9 billion tenge lower than in the draft budget; at 4.606 trillion tenge for 2016 or 147.3 billion tenge lower; and 4.972 trillion tenge for 2017 or 176 billion tenge lower (180.87 tenge/$1 on Nov. 25).
Budget spending will be 7.855 trillion tenge in 2015, at 8.042 trillion tenge in 2016 and at 7.944 trillion tenge in 2017.
According to the revised forecast, nominal GDP will come to 43.7 trillion tenge or 1.3 trillion tenge lower than the August forecast. Real GDP is revised downward to 4.8% from 5% in 2015.
The budget deficit target was left unchanged at 997 billion tenge in 2015 or 2.3% of GDP, 1.059 trillion tenge in 2016 or 2.1% of GDP and 973 billion tenge in 2017 or 1.7% of GDP.
The reserves of the National Fund will increase from $97.7 billion in 2015 to $115.6 billion in 2017 (34.2% of GDP).
