Ukrainian Finance Minister Announces Tax Collections Over Budget

Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

29 March 2001

Ukraine's Finance Minister Ihor Mityukov, reported that the State Tax Administration and the Customs Service had over-fulfilled their budget during the first quarter by 500m hryvnyas thanks to better-than-expected tax receipts.

Unfortunately, the Finance Ministry also had to report that revenue from privatisation during the quarter was only half the planned 1 billion hryvnas. Officials say that if the State Property Fund (which has consistently under-achieved in the past) continues to make such slow progress with privatisation then revenues could fall below target for the year by as much as 3 billion hryvnas.

Ihor Mityukov remains optimistic. Along with the Prime Minister Victor A.Yuschenko (formerly head of the Central Bank), Western-trained Mityukov is one of the two or three reformist ministers who have been members of the Government throughout the long and tangled road that the country has travelled during the 10 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The current team offers the country the best chance of climbing out of economic paralysis that it has had during this time.

A government delegation will visit Washington at the end of April in an attempt to convince the IMF and World Bank leadership to renew financial cooperation with Ukraine. If the arguments of the Ukrainian ministers prove to be convincing enough, the IMF will release the first tranche of 150m dollars. This week's approval of the budget code by the Ukrainian parliament is an important step in the right direction, the IMF representative in Ukraine, Henri Ghesquiere, has said.

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