18 June 2020, Thursday, 18:34 130

State Budget Lost UAH 7 Billion In Revenue In January-May 2020 Due To Poor Quality Of Currency Exchange-Rate Forecast – Accounting Chamber

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The state budget lost UAH 7 billion in revenue in the period of January-May 2020 because of the poor quality of the currency exchange-rate forecast.

The Accounting Chamber’s Chairman Valerii Patskan announced this during presentation of the conclusions on an analysis of the implementation of the Law on the 2019 State Budget in the parliament, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

The chairman of the Accounting Chamber emphasized that the government needed to improve the quality of the main macroeconomic forecasts that are taken into account during approval of the state budget.

"According to the Accounting Chamber’s assessment, the poor quality of the forecast for 2019 resulted in the loss of UAH 43 billion in projected revenues. This year is no exception. The state budget for 2020 was based on the average exchange rate of 27 UAH/USD and later revised to 30 UAH/USD. In reality, the hryvnia’s exchange rate was 25.8 UAH/USD in January-May. Therefore, the Accounting Chamber estimates that the state budget lost UAH 7 billion in revenue,” Patskan said.

In general, according to the chairman of the Accounting Chamber, the government did not ensure implementation of the state budget in 2019.

According to him, the state budget’s revenues and expenditures reduced by more than UAH 20 billion in the fourth quarter.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, according to the updated macroeconomic forecast for this year, the average annual exchange rate will be 29.5 UAH/USD, but it could reach 30.5 UAH/USD in the second half of the year.