Moldovan government approves draft law on state budget for 2022

Chisinau, 19 November /MOLDPRES/ - The cabinet of ministers, at a today’s meeting, approved the draft law on the state budget for 2022. The principal measures of policies refer to the sector of salary payment, health care, social protection and insurance, regional and local development, as well as of the business environment, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.
Under the draft, the state budget revenues next year will amount to 50.1 billion lei, up by 9.2 per cent against 2021. The increase in revenues is due, mainly, to the collections of taxes, as a result of the improvement of the macroeconomic indicators and fiscal policy measures.  
The draft also sees earmarking of resources for increasing the assistance for the cold period of the year by 200 lei, along with the increase in the number of beneficiaries of this help, partial compensation for the households of the costs for the invoices for natural gas and thermal energy, as well as extending the area of coverage of the projects from the National Regional Development Fund, with the local development included as well – 550 million lei.  
Also, the draft law provides for the gradual increase in the salaries of the public sector employees, as well as the adjusting of the provisions of the Law No 270/2018 on the single salary payment system in the public sector and other normative acts. Thus, the general reference value applied for the calculation of the salaries of over 72,000 public sector employees will increase up to 1,800 lei and for 103,000 employees – up to 1,900 lei. At the same time, the draft also sees allocations for increasing the grades of salary payment for the drivers employees of the public sector.     
As for the expenses, the cabinet made an increase in state budget spending by 7.5 billion lei against the one envisaged for this year. Thus, the overall expenses will amount to 65.2 billion lei. As much 51.4 per cent or 33.5 billion lei represent transfers to local budgets (state social insurances budget, mandatory health insurances accounts and local public administration) and 48.6 per cent of the expenditures are for implementing programmes, through the central public authorities. The spending meant for implementing the projects financed from external sources in 2022 will stand at about 5.4 billion lei, accounting for 8.3 per cent of the overall state budget expenses.    
Besides, the draft budget for 2022 provides for the ensuring of the present programmes of spending. In all, the capital expenses will amount to 6.7 billion lei (by 1.8 million lei more against 2021), of which the capital investments will stand at 2.7 billion lei (by 405 million lei more against 2021).   
The state budget deficit is seen to be 15.1 billion lei. The principal sources of its financing are the external sources (net flows from foreign loans for budgetary support and implementation of projects financed from external sources) and internal sources (issuance of state transferable securities and means from the sale and privatization of public assets).   
The state debt’s balance on 31 December 2022 is estimated to be 103.3 billion lei; the share of the state debt in the Gross Domestic Product in late 2022 will not exceed 40.4 per cent, by 3.7 percentage points more against the value specified for the end of 2021.
The draft was worked out according to the legal framework and other normative acts, which regulate the budgetary and fiscal aspects and is to be submitted to parliament for consideration and adoption.
Photo: Government