2015 state budget law under discussion

Макроэкономика 24.12.2014 PM Yatsenyuk's draft of the 2015 state budget bill has caused controversy among the ruling majority PMs, and, despite support from the pro-president faction, critics expect broad changes to the draft. While the central government's budget is proposed to have a UAH63.7bn deficit, down just 7.1% from this year's expected deficit, the budget deficit is expected to run at 3.7% of GDP in relative terms, with the primary balance expected to be 0.6% of GDP. Total public debt outstanding is forecast at UAH1,176bn or 69% of GDP at the end of 2015 (up by UAH220bn from a year ago). More controversy arose from the planned volume of government bond issues, for which there are clauses allowing flexibility to issue more debt if needed (for Naftogaz, banks, state deposit insurance, etc). The most striking proposal, in our view, was the government's plan to restructure domestic debt held by NBU into a 20-year 5%-coupon bond issue which would save the government UAH9.9bn in debt servicing alone. While the administration has rebuffed rumours of debt restructuring over the last few months, this could be the first official indication that the government is considering such a move.