The Verkhovna Rada should adopt amendments to the state budget next week due to the situation with the hryvnia exchange rate. Serhiy Lovochkin, a member of the OPPOSITION BLOC parliamentary faction said this according to the party press service.

“The OPPOSITION BLOC demands to urgently convene an extraordinary session of the parliament next week, and make changes to the budget,” the MP stressed.

He reminded that the planned exchange rate included in the budget was 24.1 hryvnias, while the National Bank had already set the official exchange rate at 27.24 hryvnias to the dollar, and international agencies forecast that in 2016 it would reach 30.

“The appreciation of the dollar to the hryvnia by 13% in just two months indicates that the amount the Cabinet planned to repay the debt would not be enough. In the proposed amendments to the budget the OPPOSITION BLOC included the rate of 30 hryvnia to the dollar, and so it covers the needed amount to repay debts. But most importantly, the new draft budget offers a real indexation of people’s incomes, not the 12% approved by the coalition that will not cover the inflation in 2016,” Serhiy Lovochkin said.

According to the policy maker, the real inflation this year will exceed 25%, not the 12% projected in the budget.

“Therefore, our draft budget increased the target for tax revenues by 84 billion, of which 62 billion hryvnias we suggest to allocate for raising the minimum wage to 1958 UAH and the minimum pension - to UAH 1526. This measure will boost the domestic market, which in turn will increase the revenues from VAT and excise taxes. And these additional 400-500 hryvnias will simply allow millions of Ukrainians to survive,” he added.

Lovochkin also informed that the draft budget suggested by the OPPOSITION BLOC provides additional UAH 6.7 billion for health care, 4.4 billion for education, 10 billion for regional economic development.

“This is why our draft budget is fundamentally different from the last two budgets adopted by the current government. For the first time in recent years we suggest to invest in the economy and regional development, so that in a few months we could reap the returns in the growth of industry and agriculture. Even the official statistics showed that the economy continued to decline in January, so the longer we delay the investment, the deeper we continue to slide. Therefore, the OPPOSITION BLOC demands to convene an extraordinary session of the parliament already next week to pass amendments to the state budget,” the OPPOSITION BLOC leader concluded.