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limited official funding.
As Kotovych said, the problem of financing is due to the fact that when calculating the budget, large borrowings were planned, in particular from international financial institutions (IFIs), which were not realised due to the delay in reviewing the IMF programme and the subsequent tranche.
ICU expects that borrowings in 2021 will also be less than the planned UAH246.6bn, but slightly more than in 2020, which will affect the size of the deficit, which, according to the investment group's forecasts, will be 4.5% of GDP .
Ukraine's state budget for 2020 provides for a deficit of 7.5% of GDP, and the draft state budget for 2021 is based on a deficit of 5.5% of GDP.
6.1.2 ​Budget dynamics - specific issues...
The amount of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) allocated for economic support and social payments is equal to RUB350bn ($4.8bn) in 2020​, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the annual press conference at the end of December.
"We also allocate a portion of money from NWF for current budget expenses in this year, for social ones in the first instance. These are payments to citizens, families with children, payments to doctors, to students of higher medical educational institutions and colleges. This is to support the exposed sectors of the economy, support major companies. The total amount of money we are to allocate from NWF in this year will be RUB350bn, with RUB250bn ($3.4bn) of them already utilized," the head of state said.
The remaining RUB100bn ($1.4bn) can be utilized by the end of 2020, Putin noted. "The end of year is somewhat quick, intensive from the standpoint of money spending. I think about RUB100bn can be utilized by the year-end," the head of state said.
NWF resources are also spent for development of the transport infrastructure, the Trans-Siberian and the Baikal-Amur railways in particular, the President added.
Of the 30mn ‘economically active’ Ukrainians, only 37%, or 10.9mn, pay taxes,​ Oleksiy Lyubchenko, Head of the State Tax Service, said recently on the Freedom of Speech show of Ukraina TV. Far from getting better, today’s number of taxpayers is about half of the number of 15 years ago, he said. According to 2019 statistics, 11.8mn Ukrainians who are able to work “did not make any money,” Lyubchenko said. To him, this means that most work unofficially.
The top tax dodging regions are largely in the West: Uzhgorod - 63%; Chernivtsi - 53%; Odesa -- 48%; and Lviv -- 46%. In central Ukraine, rates are better: Kyiv - 30%; Chernihiv and Poltava - 31%.
To mitigate the impact of the upcoming Covid quarantine, the government last week distributed $80mn in aid to 278,000 employees and small business​ owners, the Digitalization Ministry reports. With all
34​ UKRAINE Country Report​ January 2021 ​ ​www.intellinews.com