Azernews.Az

The Uzbek Senate (upper house of the parliament) approved the state budget for 2015 with a deficit of about 1.8 trillion UZS, or in the amount of 1 percent from the projected gross domestic product (GDP).

The revenue of the state budget for 2015 will amount to 36.2 trillion UZS (20.2 percent of GDP), expenditure - 38 trillion UZS (21.2 percent of GDP).

The budget options were designed to meet the planned next year GDP growth by 8 percent, industrial production - by 8.3 percent, agricultural production - by 6 percent, the volume of capital investments – by 9.6 percent and projected inflation at 5.5-6.5 percent, said Rustam Azimov, the First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Uzbekistan.

The revenue side of the state budget of Uzbekistan provides basic reduction of the tax rate on the corporate income from 8 to 7.5 percent, which will leave about 90 billion UZS at the disposal of enterprises.

Single social payment for small firms and enterprises, as well as farms in 2015 will be reduced from 25 to 15 percent, the single tax rate for construction companies, which are micro firms and small enterprises from 6 to 5 percent.

Personal income provides for the introduction of the four-assessment scale with the establishment of the zero rate on the first group of income - to a single minimum wage, while increasing rates for other groups by 1 percentage point.

In addition, indexing of a number of taxes, including the personal property tax, land tax, the excise tax on alcohol and tobacco products is provided.

The rate of compulsory insurance payments of citizens of their income in the form of wage increases from 6.5 to 7 percent in order to ensure a balance of the Pension Fund.

"Revenues to the pension fund in 2015, taking into account the measures proposed to strengthen the revenue base and cost optimization, will make 14 trillion UZS, which will provide timely financing of expenditures on pensions and benefits," said Azimov.

Social expenditures of the state budget for 2015 will make 59.2 percent of total budget expenditures. Compared with the current year, they will increase by more than 1.2 times.

Expenditures on the economy will amount to 2.3 percent of GDP, the improvement of human settlements, including the costs of the overhaul and repair of roads in rural areas - 0.4 percent of GDP, which is 1.3 times more than in 2014.

Expenditures on the co-financing of a program to build 12,000 individual houses on the standard projects in rural areas in 2015 will make 0.6 percent of GDP (along with the means of individual developers and borrowings from international financial institutions).

The approved by the Senate budget will be sent for approval of the president of Uzbekistan.

The state budget of Uzbekistan for 2014 was approved with a deficit of 1.3 trillion UZS, or in the amount of 1 percent of projected GDP. The revenue part of the budget was approved in the amount of 30.2 trillion UZS (23.2 percent of GDP) and expenditures - 31.5 trillion UZS (24.2 percent of GDP).

The official exchange rate on November 13 is 2 392.50 UZS / $1.