Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Dec. 3 / Trend D. Azizov /
The Uzbek senate approved the country's 2011 state budget with a deficit of 812.5 billion soum, or one percent of the projected GDP.
Vice Prime Minister, Finance Minister Rustam Azimov said at the parliamentary meeting that the state budget's parameters are developed based on the planned GDP growth for next year at 8.3 percent, industrial production at 9.3 percent, agriculture at 5.8 percent, capital investments at 12.1 percent, services at 12.8 percent, retail trade turnover at 16.1 percent, and exports at 10.3 percent.
Revenues from the state budget will hit 16.178 trillion soum (20.9 percent of the GDP) and expenditures will reach 16.991 trillion soum (21.9 percent of the GDP).
The budget revenues have taken into account the reduction of the single tax rate paid by small businesses to six percent from the current seven percent.
The minimum income tax rate for physical entities is also envisaged to be reduced to 10 percent from 11 percent, with the middle income tax rate dropping to 16 percent from 17 percent, and the maximum income tax rate remaining at 22 percent.
The share of direct taxes in the 2011 budget revenues will reach 25.9 percent compared to 26.7 percent this year. The share of indirect taxes, resource payments and property tax will increase to 67.8 percent compared to 66.4 percent in 2010.
In 2011, the bulk of expenditures - 59.8 percent - will be spent on social development, health, education, culture and sports, as well as social provision. The costs on the economy will amount to 11.5 percent of the total budget expenditures. Roughly 5.5 percent of the expenditures will be spent on centralized capital investments.
The budget deficit will be covered by the state budget's unencumbered balances as of early 2011 and other non-inflationary sources.
The 2010 budget was approved by the senate in November 2009 with the deficit at one percent of the GDP, revenues at 13.120 trillion soum (21.8 percent of the GDP) and expenditures at 13.627 trillion soum (22.8 percent of the GDP).
The official exchange rate today is 1,633.90 soum to $1.