Financial help from partners will be extremely important in the new year.
The Verkhovna Rada voted in the first reading draft of the State Budget for the next year. 251 People's Deputies voted “for”.
“Servants of the People” gave 194 votes, another 28 votes were given by “Platform for Life and Peace” and “Restoration of Ukraine”, both created by deputies from the banned “Opposition Platform – For life.” One vote was given by the faction “For the future”, 17 – “Trust”.
Another seven votes were secured by “Holos” deputies, four by non-factional deputies. The “European Solidarity” and “Batkivshchyna” factions did not cast a single vote.
The second reading of the project will be considered this month, People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported.
The discussion of amendments in the hall lasted for almost three hours. It was possible to cancel amendments to increase funding for the national telethon by 1.4 billion and amendment No. 277 on additional rights of the Cabinet of Ministers.
According to Zheleznyak, there are only two “balance sheet corrections” left: an increase in spending on the DFRD (+2 billion), social protection of children and families (+446 million), measures in the field of information space protection (+1.3 billion) and production TV programs (+100 million).
We will remind, the total amount of revenues of the state budget is forecasted at 1.3 trillion hryvnias. Expenses are planned in the amount of UAH 2.6 trillion. Almost half of the expenditures will go to finance national security and defense – UAH 1.1 trillion, funding under this article has been increased three times, to 17.8% of GDP.
Other priority areas are: pension provision and social protection (835 billion UAH); health care (175.7 billion UAH); education (155 billion UAH) and support for war veterans (6.8 billion UAH).
The deficit of approximately $38 billion is planned to be covered with international aid. According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the main donors may be the USA, the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
Read also: The main risk of the State Budget-2023 is foreign borrowing
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The Ministry of Finance has significantly reduced expenses during the preparation of the state budget for next year, but even this is not enough. Half of the funds we plan to live on throughout 2023 are borrowed. If they do not arrive on time and in the required quantity, there will be only one way out – to print money. This means that inflation will be above 30%, and the exchange rate will be more than UAH 50 per dollar. Read more in Yulia Samaeva's article “State Budget-2023: a task for one and a half trillion“.
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