Ukraine should enter a new year with a budget that meets the criteria determined in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said.
“Ukraine must enter a new year with a budget that meets the criteria determined in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund as a condition for Ukraine to remain in the IMF program. This is the key requirement,” he said at a cabinet meeting on December 18.
The information and communications department of the Cabinet of Ministers reported that the work with the IMF, according to Yatsenyuk “is not just an additional financial cushion to increase foreign exchange reserves.”
“Our work with the IMF is the main criterion of conformity of Ukraine with the indicators of reforms that are necessary for foreign investors and western partners. This is the real mark whether the reforms are implemented,” he said.
He said that on 17 December, under the norm of the Budget Code of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and personally the finance minister had presented the draft budget for 2016 in the Ukrainian parliament.
He expressed hope that the working group with the participation of the prime minister, the finance minister, the parliamentary speaker, members of parliamentary committees and members of factions ‘will elaborate a joint well-balanced law of Ukraine on the state budget for the next year, and will elaborate draft amendments to the tax legislation’.
“I hope by Thursday we will find mutual understanding”, Yatsenyuk said.He said that over the last decade the budget process had always followed a standard procedure – “the opposition always criticizes.”
“Last year there was a rather serious controversy in the Parliament about the draft budget. But as a result, the bill was passed, revenues of local budgets increased by 40%, state budget revenues also rose by almost 40%, all social standards were covered, no kopeck of debt either on salaries, or on pensions, or on spending, what is crucial, on national security and defense, they were all paid. Therefore, the same way, avoiding extra politicization we will pass this budget process,” the prime minister said.
“I hope the members of the parliamentary coalition have an understanding of how important it is to adopt both a well-balanced and relevant state budget and a tax reform”, he said.
