The Transnistrian leader Yevgeny Shevchuk said that 2015 will be a tough year for the Transnistrian region from economic viewpoint. In an interview for a local radio station on January 16, Shevchuk said that many of the unpopular decisions, such as the halving of pension bonuses and the elimination of transport concessions, were taken as a result of the sudden worsening of the economic situation in the region, IPN reports.

The Transnistrian leader noted that the budget revenues during the first ten days of January represented only 30% of the amounts collected in the corresponding period last year. Therefore, the concessions could not be kept.

Yevgeny Shevchuk explained that the pension bonuses started to be allocated in 2008 from the assistance provided by Russia following the drought and floods experienced by the region. This assistance for pensioners should have been reduced in 2014, but it continued to be paid from the internal reserves. Given the difficult economic situation, it was decided to halve them this year.

Shevchuk referred also to the impact of the devaluation of the Russian ruble on the region, saying some of the entrepreneurs had to halt exports to Russia, which is the main export market for the Transnistrian exporters. The exports to the EU and Ukraine also decreased and this has a negative effect on the region’s economy too.

According to the publication “Transnistrian Economic Reality”, produced by the Independent Analytical Center “Expert-Grup”, Transnistria’s budget deficit in 2015 is projected to represent 40% of the public expenditure. The enormous budgetary gap is a constant problem for the region and the worsening of the economic situation only intensified this constraint.