Ukraine's budget deficit at 9.3% of spending in Jan-Feb - MinFin
KYIV. April 1 (Interfax) - Ukraine's national budget deficit stood at 5.3 billion hryvnia, or 9.3% of spending, for January-February 2014, the Finance Ministry said, citing the Ukrainian State Treasury Service.
Revenue for the first two months of the year declined 3.9% year-on-year to 52.34 billion hryvnia. Spending totaled 57.72 billion hryvnia, up 1.9%.
Revenue for the general fund of the national budget was up 2.5% at 46.21 billion hryvnia, largely due to the National Bank's allotment of 4.04 billion hryvnia in January and 4.76 billion hryvnia in February, up from 1 billion hryvnia for the first two months of last year.
Tax funds declined 46.1% to 7.62 billion hryvnia, while funds from VAT fell 10.3% to 23.45 billion hryvnia. General fund expenses were up 0.9% at 51.8 billion hryvnia.
The budget deficit stood at 3.67 billion hryvnia in February, up 430% from February of last year. The ministry said this occurred because of a special fund deficit of 1.07 billion hryvnia in February of last year, while profit of 2.33 billion hryvnia was seen the year before.
The 2014 state budget has been affirmed with revenue of 395.3 billion hryvnia, including 345.46 billion hryvnia from the general fund. The 2014 budget includes 462.21 billion hryvnia in spending, including 408.07 billion hryvnia from the general fund. It also includes a deficit limit of 71.56 billion hryvnia.
Last week, the Verkhovna Rada significantly cut budget revenue and spending. The final version of the approved document has not yet been published. Revenue has preliminarily been cut 5.7% to 372.93 billion hryvnia, however, and spending - 5.5% to 436.76 billion hryvnia. The new variant of the budget deficit was lowered 3 billion hryvnia to 68.56 billion hryvnia.
The exchange rate on April 1 was 10.9981 hryvnia/$1.
