16:09 17.12.2013

Ukraine's budget deficit in 2014 expected at 3% of GDP – Finance Ministry

2 min read

The deficit of Ukraine's national budget in 2014 could amount to about 3%, First Deputy Finance Minister Anatoliy Miarkovsky has said at a round table.

According to him, the deviation from this level could be "plus or minus" 0.5%.

"We more realistically focused on the formation of revenues to the budget," he said about the work done on the draft national budget.

The official said that the government at tomorrow's meeting would made the final decision on the plans to reduce VAT and income tax.

He said the reduction of VAT would reduce revenues to the national budget and cheapen imports, but domestic prices might remain unchanged.

According to the Tax Code of Ukraine, from January 1, 2014 VAT should be reduced from 20% to 17% and corporate income tax from 19% to 16%, but the government was discussing regarding the correction of this point.

The official also said that the draft budget for next year would be considered by the government at a meeting on Wednesday and sent to the parliament by the end of the week.

Regarding the fulfillment of the national budget for 2013, Miarkovsky said that its deficit for the first 11 months was UAH 46.5 billion. He noted that UAH 86.3 billion was transferred from the national budget to the Pension Fund in January-November.

"The whole situation is controllable and we do not see any global catastrophes in the implementation of the budget," he said.

According to Miarkovsky, total revenues in the public sector (the consolidated budget, the Pension Fund, other extra-budgetary funds) for the 11 months of 2013 amounted to UAH 575.8 billion, which is 2.8% higher than in the same period last year.

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