The state budget revenues in 2019 were by 3.7 billion lei higher than the revenues of 2018. The revenues collected by the State Tax Service rose by 760 million lei, those collected by the Customs Service – by 1.4 billion lei, while other revenues were by 1.3 billion lei higher. In a Facebook post, Prime Minister Ion Chicu said the budgetary system of Moldova is well formed, but there is yet place for improvement, IPN reports.

According to the Premier, the budget can cope with many risks, such as parliamentary and local elections during a year and political crises.

Despite the over 17% decline in the state social insurance contributions for the private sector in the first three quarters of 2019, the own revenues of the state social insurance budget increased by 764 million lei compared with 2018 and by almost 1 billion lei compared with the initially projected figure.

The own revenues of the mandatory health insurance funds grew by 673 million lei.

Premier Chicu also wrote that even if the upper income tax rate for private individuals was reduced from 18% to 12% and the personal exemption rose from 11,940 lei to 24,000 lei a year, the amounts collected into the local budgets exceeded the planned figure by 205 million lei and rose by 51 million lei compared with 2018.

This way, the revenues of the national public budget in 2019 were by over 5.25 billion lei higher on 2018. The budget deficit was 2.94 billion lei and represented 1.4% of the GDP.

Ion Chicu noted that the balances in the accounts of the national public budget last yearend were sufficient to cover all the payments, including the salaries, pensions, benefits and the 700 lei in aid intended for about 600,000 people, from the very first hours of 2020.