The Verkhovna Rada on Thursday supported at the final reading bill No. 9346-1 with amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine on ensuring the predictability of budgetary policy and strengthening debt sustainability, Head of the parliamentary budget committee Roksolana Pidlasa has said.

According to her, the adoption of the law ahead of schedule means the implementation of a new structural benchmark (No. 10) under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the launch of the implementation of beacon No. 12 – a revision of the Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy with a deadline for its publication before the end of September this year.

Pidlasa said that the adopted law requires that an expert opinion of the Ministry of Finance is submitted to each bill on amendments to the state budget and that such bills be considered in the Rada if there are conclusions from the Ministry of Finance on their support.

In addition, it restores the more stringent conditions for amending the law on the state budget, specified in Article 52 of the Budget Code, leaving an exception in the conditions of martial law, the revision of expenditures in the security and defense sector, she said.

Another norm of the adopted law is the restoration of medium-term budget planning from January 1, 2024, through the preparation of the Budget Declaration, which was stopped in March last year due to the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Pidlasa said.

She added that in 2023-2028, the law limits the amount of government guarantees provided by decisions of the Cabinet of Ministers to 3% of the planned revenues of the general fund of the state budget, and the maximum amount of state guarantees provided based on international treaties will be determined by the law on the state budget.

Finally, the document instructs to resume this year the development of the Public Debt Management Strategy for 2024-2026, which was also stopped due to the full-scale invasion, providing for its submission by the Ministry of Finance for government consideration by October 25, 2023, and approval it by the Government within a month from the date of adoption of the law on the state budget for 2024.