Zhytomyr – Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn has said he is confident that Ukraine's national budget for 2013 will be passed by the parliament by December 1, 2012.
“I’m sure that the budget will be adopted by December 1, 2012,” Lytvyn told reporters on September 22, 2012 in Zhytomyr.
He said that he hopes and believes that the finalized national budget will be a better than the one he returned to the cabinet.
Lytvyn said that the parliament in November would have two plenary weeks.
As reported, the government on September 12, 2012, approved and tabled the draft budget for 2013 in parliament within the deadline fixed by the Constitution (September 15). However, having discussed the draft with the parliament’s budget committee, Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn decided to send the document for finalization. The wording of the draft budget was neither made public nor distributed among lawmakers.
The government forecast the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms in Ukraine in 2013 at 4.5% (the nominal volume is UAH 1.688 trillion) with inflation forecast at 5.9%.
The deficit of the 2013 national budget is foreseen at 1.65% of GDP, or UAH 27.8 billion. According to the draft, the revenues of the national budget for 2013 could grow by 6.4%, to UAH 394.6 billion year-over-year, while the amount of budget expenditures on crediting will increase by 6.3%, to UAH 434.6 billion in 2013.
In general, the revenues of the consolidated budget for next year are estimated at UAH 499.4 billion, which is 8% higher than the forecast was for 2012.
