2020 state budget to be presented at Monday's sitting

The proposal for next year's state budget is to be presented at Monday’s parliament sitting.

It will be read out at the sitting, by the parliament secretariat.

The finance ministry forwarded the budget to the parliament last Thursday (October 31).

As per the Public Finance Act, the proposed budget for the upcoming year must be submitted two months prior to the beginning of the upcoming year.

The proposed budget must consist of the upcoming year’s estimated expenditure and profit, as well details of the previous year’s financial records.

According to the ‘2020-2022 Medium Term Fiscal Strategy’ report compiled by the finance ministry in June, the state budget is estimated to reach MVR 39.6 billion.

It notes that budget for the year 2020 is estimated to be MVR 39.6 billion, of which total expenditure is estimated to be MVR 37 billion.

If the government is able to maintain the budget deficit at 6.5 percent of GDP as noted in the report, new programs and projects is estimated to receive a “fiscal space” of MVR 5.5 billion.

The ministry also estimates a recurrent expenditure of MVR 20 billion, and MVR 11.7 billion for capital expenditure.

The overall fiscal balance at the end of 2019 is a deficit of MVR 221.4 million.

The People's Majlis passed an MVR 30.2 billion state budget for 2019, it was increased to MVR 32 billion in August this year following a request from the finance ministry.