UPDATED: The Verkhovna Rada supported the increase in state budget expenditures for this year by 5.5 billion UAH

UPDATED at 12:30 p.m., the bill was adopted as a basis:

266 MPs voted in favour of increasing expenditures by 5.5 billion UAH for the reconstruction of hospitals, rebuilding of bridges, and grants for processing enterprises. According to the document, 445.6 UAH million is to be raised through grants and assistance from foreign governments; 1.27 billion UAH is to be returned to the state by the Social Insurance Fund; the remaining 3.84 billion UAH is to be raised through additional external borrowing.

In addition, the MPs supported the transfer of the Fund for the Elimination of the Consequences of Armed Aggression (52.3 billion UAH), which is managed by the Ministry of Finance, to the Ministry of Reconstruction.

What happened? The Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada approved bill No. 8399, which introduces changes to the state budget for the current year.

Source. Yaroslav Zhelezniak, MP from the Holos (Voice) party.

Details. The bill allows:

• increase planned state borrowings from 1703 billion UAH to 1707 billion UAH;
• to increase the maximum amount of the state budget deficit to 1300 billion UAH (currently 1296.5 billion UAH, which is 20.6% of the forecast GDP)
• to set the limit of the state debt at 6426 billion UAH as of December 31, 2023.

Mr. Zhelezniak emphasises that these will be the first changes to the state budget in early 2023.