Ukraine manages to finance key budget expenditures in first 6 months of this year - PM

MOSCOW. July 17 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian government has coped with the challenge of financing all key budget expenditures in the first six months of 2023, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said.

"We see and clearly understand how we will pass this year in terms of financing the budget deficit. This allows us to ensure macroeconomic and macro-financial sustainability [....]. In the first six months of 2023, we have met the challenge of financing all key budget expenditures. We channeled all the taxes of citizens and businesses to ensure the defense and security of our country," Ukrainian media quoted the prime minister as saying in a statement at a government meeting last Friday.

Between January and June 2023, the general fund of the state budget received almost UAH 870 billion, of which UAH 600 billion are the tax revenue, and UAH 270 billion are grants from international partners, the prime minister said.

He also noted that a total of UAH 1.302 trillion of taxes, fees and other payments were received by various funds of the state budget at the end of the first six months.

"If the revenue amounted to UAH 1.3 trillion, then for the same period of six months the state budget expenditures totaled UAH 1.784 trillion. As I have already said, the absolute priority of the budget is security and defense. We are currently spending about half of all the funds in the budget on this," Shmygal said.

For the first six months of 2023, UAH 231 billion was allocated from the state budget for social payments, of these funds, UAH 136 billion was allocated for pensions and support of the Pension Fund, and UAH 23.1 billion of subsidies were paid, he said.

"Along with the army, security and social payments, the key areas of spending in the first half of the year remained medicine, education and support for the regions. In the first quarter of this year, we managed to ensure the average salary of doctors at the level of almost UAH 22,000. Only educational subventions for the regions for the past six months have been paid in the amount of over UAH 56 billion," the prime minister added.