​PARLIAMENT ADOPTS DRAFT LAW ON AMENDMENTS TO BUDGET LAW IN FIRST READING

At a meeting on Thursday, the Moldovan Parliament adopted in the first reading a bill on amendments to the law on the state budget.

Presenting the draft amendments from the rostrum of the parliament, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance Serghei Puscuta said that the budget revenues will be reduced by 649.5 million lei - to 37.2 billion lei (primarily due to reduction of tax revenues (VAT) on imported goods, and grant revenues from international organizations); expenditure - by 1.8 billion lei to 53.2 billion lei (mainly due to a reduction of spending on projects with external financing).

Thus, the state budget deficit will be reduced by 1.2 billion lei - to 15.9 billion lei.

He also said that the rectification of the budget is due to the fact that "Moldova's macroeconomic perspectives have become more and more gloomy this year" - the law on budget was approved in 2019, based on the forecast for GDP growth of 3.8%. Amendments to the budget in April have already taken into account a drop of 3%, and this time - a decrease in GDP by 4.5%.

“Therefore, in the new project, the government reduced everything that could be reduced as much as possible, without planning any expenses that did not imply coverage. One of the solutions for financing the deficit is lending; the amendments already provide for the receipt of the first tranche of 1.6 billion lei after the signing of a new memorandum with the IMF,” said Puscuta.