The technical mission of the European department of the International Monetary Fund finished its work in Ukraine. The press office of the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance informed that the government of the ministry headed by the minister Yurii Kolobov and IMF experts had shared their opinions about the main parameters of the draft budget 2013. “The IMF experts gave their own estimate of the factors that will influence the development of the global and Ukrainian state finance,” the press release of the ministry reads. According to this message, the head of the Ministry of Finance Yurii Kolobov replied that “the Ukrainian draft budget 2013 has been developed considering the current tendencies and forecast of the development of the global economy.”
Unfortunately, the document does not contain any other details of the discussion or forecasts of the main figures the draft budget 2013 is based on. Recently the Ministry of Finance informed that it is based on the assumption about the accelerated GDP growth of 4.5 percent next year.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Administration has another opinion concerning the national measure next year. The first deputy head of the Presidential Administration and president’s representative in the Cabinet Council Iryna Akimova suggested using consensus projections as basic ones when developing the draft budget for 2013. “International organizations and experts of the World Bank voiced nearly the same figures. I think we can call it a basic figure that can be discussed,” Akimova explained. According to the consensus projections prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development in August 2012 based on polling the experts from 13 governmental and non-governmental organizations, the estimated GDP growth for the current year has decreased from 3.2 to 2.3 percent in April 2012, whereas the estimated inflation has decreased from 8 to 5.8 percent.
However, the former minister of finance Viktor Pynzenyk is sure that before developing the budget for next year the Ministry of Finance should deal with the current one. The expert believes that it will not be executed. Moreover, in Pynzenyk’s opinion, the regular budget non-execution has become a worrying tendency in Ukraine. “According to the budget adopted for the current year, incomes of the common fund have to grow by 19.3 percent. However, over eight months (that make two thirds of a year) the growth has been only of 11.1 percent,” the economist’s website informed. By the estimate of the former minister of finance, in the current situation the government must make real steps to avoid the aggravation of budget problems, in particular, cut down non-priority budget expenditures, cancel tax remissions for certain business structures, urgently stop the work of tax evasion centers (the so-called conversion centers) and prepare a realistic draft budget for 2013.
Referring to its source in the government, The Day previously informed that now the point of reconsidering the national measure forecast for 2012 and 2013, which is essential when making a draft budget for 2013 is being discussed. It was provided that the experts of the technical mission of the IMF that worked in Kyiv from August 29 to September 5 would be also involved into this discussion. We remind our readers that the government included into the state budget 2012 the forecast of real GDP growth of 3.9 percent with the inflation of 7.9 percent. However, after seven months the domestic GDP grew only by 2 percent with deflation of 0.1 percent and in the third quarter the GDP growth is expected to decrease as compared to the same period of 2011.
