Parliament of Georgia approves 2020 budget

The parliament of Georgia approved the draft state budget for 2020 on December 10 by 83 votes for and 1 against. The faction of "Independent MPs" was present at the plenary session as well as the parliamentary majority. Finance Minister Ivane Machavariani introduced the 3rd - final version of the draft budget.

The next year's budget amounts to GEL 14 432 900 000. The budget funds amounted to GEL 13203.7 million, grants - GEL 46.9 million, and credits - GEL 1182.3 million.

MPs from the opposition parties United National Movement and European Georgia did not attend the budget discussions and voting in protest.

After the minister's report, only 2 lawmakers raised the issue of raising salaries for doctors and the State Security Service next year.

Vano Machavariani explained that in 2020 the salaries will increase by up to 100 GEL for doctors working in rural areas and emergency workers. Within the frames of the new budget, pensions will increase by 20 GEL from January 1. Pensions of those aged 70 and older will increase by an additional 30 GEL.

In addition, From 2020, incomes of up to 43,000 senior, leader and mentor teachers of public schools will be increased by 150 GEL. From September 1 of the next year, the salaries of kindergarten employees (more than 32,000 citizens) will increase by 100 GEL. Salaries of state special security service will increase by GEL 125 starting July 1, 2020.

As for the key parameters of the budget - one of the major changes to the 3rd version of the document is the reduction in next year's economic growth forecast from 5 to 4.5%. The government has taken into account the recommendations of international financial institutions in this regard. In addition, compared to the previous version of the final draft budget, the revenue forecast increased by about 500 million to 14 billion 554 million GEL, while the payments were increased by 221 million to 14 billion 433 million.

Part of the commitment looks like this - the domestic debt plan has already increased by half a billion this year, and by 2020, that figure will reach 200 billion GEL. It should be noted that the forecast of domestic debt exceeds the second budget submission by 300 million. As a foreign debt, the government will receive GEL 867 million in 2020 - 13 million more than the previous budget, including budgetary support credits - GEL 685 million, while investment credits, which are mainly spent on infrastructure projects, will amount to GEL 182 million.

In the final version of the 2020 budget, the volume of projects in the regions was increased by GEL 50 million and amounted to GEL 350 million.

The Ministry of Justice also increased its funding by GEL 21 million to GEL 224 million. 18 million GEL will be allocated for land registration and land market development project and 3 million GEL for the construction of community centers in municipalities.

According to Machavariani, approximately GEL 1.9 billion will be spent in the education sector in 2020: GEL 285.0 million will be spent on educational infrastructure, which will contribute to the successful implementation of education reform.

According to the Finance Minister, in the final version of the 2020 budget, construction costs for vocational education institutions were increased by GEL 5 million, the costs for sports infrastructure increased by GEL 5.0 million as well, additional GEL 10.2 million – for various donor investment grants and loans, and 5.0 million GEL more for various educational programs funding.