KYIV, Sept 19 – Ukraine plans a zero-deficit state budget for 2001 with revenues and expenditures targeted at Hr 41.389 billion ($7.61 billion), the government press service said on Tuesday.
Finance Minister Ihor Mitiukov told a news conference late on Monday that revenues of the consolidated budget, which includes the state and regional budgets, would total Hr 52.3 billion.
Adoption of the 2001 state budget is a key condition to unlock lending under a stalled $2.6 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program. The IMF monitoring mission will work in Kyiv until September 22.
The government has already submitted a draft budget to parliament which plans to start debates early October.
It has said a zero-deficit budget was aimed at curbing state debt.
Mitiukov said Ukraine would spend Hr 6.35 billion next year to service its state debt, including Hr 4 billion to service foreign debts.
By July, Ukraine had slashed its foreign debt to $10.57 billion from $12.44 billion at the start of the year.
Ukraine’s parliament adopted a zero-deficit budget for the current year. The finance ministry has said that preliminary data shows revenues of Hr 20.5 billion in the first eight months.
The state budget had a surplus of 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product in the first seven months of the year.
