Romanian Government Passes 2013 Budget Bill

Passed on Wednesday by the Government in Bucharest, the 2013 state budget and social security bills are to be submitted to Parliament for debate.

România Internațional, 24.01.2013, 23:02

Deputies and Senators are free to make amendments to these draft laws until Saturday. According to the Finance Minister Daniel Chitoiu, the new budget bill is aimed at boosting the country’s economy, and is based on macroeconomic indices that are bigger than last year’s.

Daniel Chitoiu: “The economic growth rate has been set at 1.6% of the GDP and inflation at 4.3%. Total revenues to the consolidated state budget account for 33.6% of the GDP. Also, the budget expenditure stands at 35.7% of the GDP, while the budget deficit has been set at 2.1% of the Gross Domestic Product.”

This year’s expenditure level is by 3.5 billion euros bigger than last year’s, delegate minister for budget, Liviu Voinea has explained:

Liviu Voinea: “Personnel expenses amount to 5.4 billion lei, of which 4.5 billions are earmarked for bringing public employee salaries back to their previous levels and 0.9 billion for paying due salaries under court decisions. Another 3.1 billion have been allotted to the procurement of goods and services, but in fact their level has only been increased in order to cover the arrears in the healthcare system.”

Prime Minister Victor Ponta describes the budget bill as realistic, allowing for investment to be maintained and for more funds to be allocated for the co-funding of European projects. Balanced and rational, the budget bill for 2013 will also enable Romania to fulfil its commitments to international lenders, and to observe the government’s pledges to raise minimum salaries to 180 euros and pensions by 4%, Victor Ponta has explained.

The payment of some older debts has been also taken into account. In order to bring more money to the state budget, a set of fiscal measures has been adopted early this week. Their implementation is expected to bring another 650 million to the state budget. As of Monday, January 28th, the budget bill, which observes the terms agreed on with international financial experts, will be analysed by the expert committees and then discussed in a joint Parliament session starting February 5th.