PARLIAMENT ADOPTS AMENDMENTS TO 2019 BUDGET

The parliamentary majority adopted on Thursday in the final reading the amendments to the Law on 2019 State Budget, agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Chairman of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Economy, Budget and Finance Igor Munteanu said that the changes are due to the need of regulating the figures of expenditures and revenues on the basis of recent forecasts of the main macroeconomic rates and results of budget execution in 1H2019, as well as given the unblocking of external financial assistance.

The amendments imply the reduction of revenue and expenditure parts of the budget. Revenues in 2019 are planned at 40.9 billion lei instead of the earlier-planned 42.1 billion lei, while expenditures were cut to 46.3 billion lei from 47.6 billion. In this way, the budget deficit grew 164.6 million lei – to 5.7 billion lei and will account for 2.75% of the GDP.

Also, the amendments imply the reduction of revenues to budget from the social insurance by 729 million lei – to 8.1 billion lei. Meanwhile, the financing to local budgets will slightly grow – 429 million lei. At the same time, capital investments will grow 1.3 billion at once (20.4%) due to the delays in starting various investment projects (for example, the agreement worth 100 million lei for road reconstruction with Belarus’ assistance has not been signed yet).

Minister of Finance Natalia Gavrilita said before that the need of amendments is due to the expediency of approving the Law on Budget by previous authorities, while the paramount priority is the unblocking of the external financial support. Gavrilita said that within the EU state budget, this year it is planned to get 1.3 billion lei, which will be used for paying salaries, according to the system, approved by the previous leadership.