Budget 2016 approved ‘in principle’ by the Economy Commission

Tirana, December 2, 2015

The parliamentarian Economy Commission has approved ‘in principle’ the draft budget for 2016, after the end of a two week discussion of the budget in the parliamentary commissions between government representatives and groups of interest.

Based on the draft budget for 2016, the public investments are planned at an amount of ALL 92 billion, equal to 6% of the Gross Domestic Product, says the Ministry of Finances. According to the Ministry’s experts, the total expenditures are expected to reach the amount of ALL 452, 125 million while revenues to the state budget are estimated to reach the amount of ALL 417, 694 million.

The Minister of Finances claimed that next year’s budget has the lowest budgetary deficit of only 2.2% of the GDP and that is expected the public debt to decrease from 72.6% to 70.9% of the GDP during 2016.

In turn, the opposition party MPs opposed the draft budget by arguing that pensions are planned the increase slightly by only 0.8% and there will not be increase of wages for the public sector for the third year in a row.

The draft budget for 2016 is expected to be approved on December 4^th by the Parliament in a special plenary session. The draft budget will have to be approved article by article by the parliamentary Commissions in order to approve officially on December 17^th by the Parliament.

News source: ATA
Photo credits: Majays31 (Wikimedia)