BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec.1
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
The final version of the draft budget for 2021 has been submitted to the Parliament of Georgia, Trend reports via Georgian media.
As reported, the final version of the draft budget also includes expenditures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The volume of state budget expenditures has increased by 221.9 million lari ($67.1 million) compared to the approved budget for 2020 and amounts to 18.384 million lari ($5.5 million), of which more than 890 million lari ($269.1 million) is earmarked for funding the new coronavirus pandemic and the crisis-related measures.
However, unlike the initial version of the draft budget, which predicted economic growth of 5 percent in 2021, the final version of the draft budget states that according to current forecasts, real GDP growth is expected to reach 4.3 percent by 2021, and in the medium term will be maintained within 5.5 percent range.
As for the budget tax revenues, according to the updated forecast for 2021, the budget tax revenues in nominal terms amount to 12.04 billion lari ($3.6 billion), which is 155 million lari ($46.8 million) less than the first submission of the draft budget for 2021. As explained in the document, the decrease is due to the effect of tax incentives provided to the private sector under the new phase of the anti-crisis plan.
At the same time, by the end of 2021, the government debt defined by the Law of Georgia on Economic Freedom will be set at 60.1 percent of GDP. As for the marginal volume of public debt, by the end of 2021 it will be set at 33,680.1 million lari ($10.1 million), including government external debt - 27,734.2 million lari ($8.3 million), and government domestic debt - 5,945.8 million lari ($1.7 million).
According to the draft budget, the debt will be slightly reduced in the coming years and by 2024 will be 57.6 percent of GDP.
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