Alikhan Smailov: Main tasks of clarifying country's budget are employment support and population incomes

The announcement by the World Health Organization of the coronavirus pandemic, a slowdown in economic development and a decline in demand for oil and petroleum products led to a review of the country's socio-economic indicators, First Deputy Prime Minister – Finance Minister Alikhan Smailov said at a government briefing.

“Since the beginning of the year, the pandemic of coronavirus infection in the world led to the decrease in the activity of business in many countries, production has also decreased, as well as oil and metal prices. Demand for our products decreased, respectively, and quarantine measures were also implemented in Kazakhstan and the state of emergency was introduced. All of this required adjusting the forecast of socio-economic development in 2020,” Smailov said.

So, in April 2020, macroeconomic indicators were revised and the republican budget for 2020 was updated.

“In particular, the nominal GDP was reduced by 4.8 trillion tenge to 69.7 trillion tenge. The price of oil before the end of the year was reduced from 55 to 20 dollars per barrel. The average annual settlement rate of the dollar was increased to 440 tenge, and the level of the inflation corridor was 9-11%. This forecast is a conservative scenario to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. The main task of clarifying this budget was to support employment in the country, population incomes, support business and ensure the balance of our republican budget,” said the minister of finance.

The parameters of the republican budget were as follows:

  • revenues – 11.8 trillion tenge (with an increase of 516 billion tenge);
  • expenses – 14.3 trillion tenge (with an increase of 1.4 trillion tenge);
  • deficit – 2.4 trillion tenge or 3.5% of GDP.

“We will monitor the situation, how the epidemiological and economic situation will develop in the world and in our country, and we will analyze macroeconomic indicators. Based on the results of six months and 9 months, we will see whether there will be a need for budget refinement in the fall. Time will tell,” concluded Smailov.

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