The Government endorsed amendments to the 2022 state budget law. The deficit was raised by 4.25 billion lei to 19.4 billion lei or to 7.1% of the GDP, IPN reports.
According to Minister of Finance Dumitru Budianschi, the added amount will be used to finance anti-crisis economic and social measures to reduce the impact of the energy crisis and the refugee crisis. “The Government’s emergency funds were practically used up. It is proposed supplementing these with 1.5 billion lei,” stated the minister.
“Besides increasing the allocations for particular expenditure programs, the bill to amend the 2022 budget law envisions new programs aimed at supporting business development. For example, the National Agriculture Development Fund will be increased by 250 million lei, the Energy Efficiency Fund – by 250 million lei, the Ecological Fund – by 21 million lei, the programs to develop small and medium-sized enterprises – by 200 million lei,” said Dumitru Budianschi.
The sources of deficit financing are to be modified following the revision of the inflows of loans, primarily of those designed to alleviate the impact of crises. Given that the internal sources to finance the state budget deficit grow more expensive, there will be used the foreign loans provided by the development partners.
The authorities project the state debt balance on December 31, 2022 will be 102.1 billion lei. At the end of this year, the state debt is expected to represent 37.3% of the GDP, down 3.1 percentage points compared with the projection for 2022.
The bill to amend the 2022 state budget law is to be submitted to Parliament for examination.
