Ukraine's Cabinet to submit the State Budget-2007 to the Verkhovna Rada

At a Wednesday session the Government of Ukraine approved the draft of 2007 national budget, which will be sent to the Parliament, the Cabinet press office informs.

The Government proposed to approve the budget's shortage at 15.1 milliard UAH ($3.02 milliard) or 2.55 percent of the nominal GDP. Some 2 milliard hryvnia-shortages is supposed to be compensated with revenues from privatization, the rest of the deficit will be financed through external loans. As First Vice-PM, Finance Minister Mykola Azarov said, the "safety margin" of the Ukrainian economy "allows making these loans". According to Mykola Azarov, the State Property Fund drafted a list of facilities, subject to privatization, which will allow earning UAH 10 milliard.

Revenues of the consolidated budget in the Govt-approved draft budget have been set at UAH 180 milliard and expenditures at UAH 196 milliard, GDP at 6.5% and inflation rate at 7.5%.

The draft national budget also provides for creating the stabilization fund to the tune of three billion UAH ($600 million USD). These funds are supposed to be used for compensation of the fuel cost, which has grown up, as we don't know the gas price in 2007 yet, he said. The draft budget bill envisages tentative price for gas of $135 per 1,000 cu. m.

By way of commenting on the 2007 budget bill, Azarov referred to it as a "transitional" one, which should stabilize the situation and create conditions for rapid development of the economy.

The bill envisages five billion USD of budgetary appropriations for the investment - innovative model of the economy's development. In Azarov opinion, these budgetary appropriations will allow to attract to the economy additionally UAH 100 milliard of internal funds, which in summary will allow to allocate 125 milliard UAH to the investment - innovative development. This is twofold more than in it was planned in 2005 and fourfold more than it was actually allocated, the First Vice-PM stressed.