The Cabinet approved amendments to the 2022 state budget law by which it raised the public costs so as to maintain economic stability and jobs and to prevent weaknesses. Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița said it is right to increase the costs in times of crisis. According to the authorities, the revenues will increase owing to the higher amounts collected as taxes and to the provided grant funding, IPN reports.

“The national economy is affected by the war in Ukraine. The global energy and product prices rise and businesses face difficulties in keeping the markets, the suppliers, the costs and jobs. The times are extraordinary and require extraordinary decisions,” Premier Gavrilița told a news conference.

The social protection costs were raised by 2.45 billion lei. The money will go to index and increase pensions and social benefits as from April 1. “I remind you that this year we augmented the Pension Fund by about 30%. We also increased other social costs. We allocated by 111.8 million lei more for the food of children in educational institutions. We increased the financing for the personal assistance service for persons with disabilities by 65 million lei and the allocations for paying for energy resources for budget-funded and public medical institutions. We added about 1 billion lei,” said the official.

A sum of 700 million lei will go to business and agriculture support programs. The energy efficiency costs were raised by 250 million lei. 50 million lei will be allocated for supporting the carriers.

“So that we have not only current costs and so as to ensure economic growth in the future, we will increase the allocations for capital costs and investments, including for the rehabilitation of roads. Capital costs will grow by 1.1 billion lei or 16.8%,” said Natalia Gavrilița.

The Government makes effort to borrow less from the domestic market and borrows cheaper from abroad. The Premier said the Government of Poland provided a loan at an interest rate of 0.01%. This is repayable in over 20 years.