The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, on Dec. 19 increased the deficit of Ukraine's state budget for 2013 and the ceiling of this year's state debt by UAH 19.4 billion, to UAH 69.98 billion and UAH 502.48 billion respectively.
A total of 243 lawmakers voted for a respective law introducing amendments to the state budget for 2013, which was submitted by Party of Regions MP Kostiantyn Pavlov, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
“This law is necessary in order to obtain a $3 billion loan from the Russian Federation,” the head of the parliament’s budget committee, Yevhen Heller, said during the discussion of the document.
As a result of such an increase the state budget deficit in 2013 will grow by 38.3% and the debt ceiling by 4%. At the same time, state budget revenues will be reduced by UAH 19.4 billion, or 5.2%, to UAH 370.56 billion.
Pavlov, in an explanatory note to the bill, explained the need for such changes by an erroneous macroeconomic forecast envisaged in the state budget. He noted that this year the import value added tax (VAT) was expected to grow by 11% and that on the goods made in Ukraine by 21%, whereas in the first 11 months of the year VAT on imports shrank by 4.2% and the domestic VAT grew by only 4.3%.
In particular, Naftogaz Ukrainy paid UAH 6.7 billion in taxes for January-November 2013, with an annual target being UAH 14.9 billion. He said that the budget would also lose the rental fee, because natural gas transit would amount to 80 billion cubic meters instead of the expected 110 billion cubic meters.
As reported, after the talks held between Presidents Viktor Yanukovych and Vladimir Putin on December 17 Russia this week plans to buy two-year Ukrainian eurobonds worth $3 billion at 5% per annum and bring the volume of their purchase next year to $15 billion.
