The Government of the Republic of Srpska approved the Budget Proposal for the next year in the amount of 3, 425 billion KM and the Proposal of the Economic Reform Programme 2020 – 2022, said the Minister of Finance Zora Vidović.
At a press conference, after the Government session in Banja Luka, she pointed out that the 2020 Budget Proposal is 3,3 percent or 108,4 million KM higher than this year’s revised budget.
According to her, it is estimated that the gross domestic product of the Republic of Srpska will grow by 3.3 percent next year.
Vidović specified that the original revenues in the proposed budget for 2020 are in the amount of 2,996 billion KM, the total budget debt is 345 million KM, and 497 million KM is planned for debt repayment.
“Debt is down by 40 million KM compared to the previous year,” said Vidović.
She added that the amount earmarked for salaries was increased for about 70 million KM. For pensions, it was planned 40 million KM more than this year, and the total amount for these purposes was 1,142 billion KM.
The social security allocation, she said, was planned at 237,4 million KM or 5,3 million KM more than in the 2019.
“For subsidies, 126,5 million KM were planned or 16,2 million KM more than this year. The largest part goes to agriculture, for which subsidies have been increased from 71 million KM to 75 million KM,” said Vidović.
According to her, 135 million KM were planned for capital investments, which is an increase of 38 million KM, mostly related to the construction and reconstruction of health facilities.
Vidović added that the Government also established the Proposal for the Economic Reform Programme for the period from 2020 to 2022, on which the next year’s Budget was based.
She stressed that all the processes under the Economic Reform Programme for the period 2019 -2021 will continue in the 2020.
“Those are, raising the competitiveness and productivity of the economy, higher employment rate and wages, solving health problems, creating more efficient public administration, structuring the education and labor market and the social card, that is, the social needs of the Republic of Srpska’s residents,” Vidović explained.
