Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 24 November, a regular meeting of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis was held. At it, the deputies considered in the first reading the draft law "On the State Budget of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2021".

The meeting was attended by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov.

Along with the draft law, the parliamentarians were presented with forecasts of the main directions of the country’s socio-economic development for 2022-2023.

The heads of the Ministry of Finance and other ministries and departments, who participated in the meeting as subjects of the right of legislative initiative, noted the essence and significance, the concept of the draft law.

The main directions and indicators of macroeconomic policy for 2021, which were submitted to parliament, reflected in the draft law, were developed on the assumption that the coronavirus pandemic could continue next year. At the same time, the main attention is paid to maintaining macroeconomic stability, i.e. GDP growth will grow by 5.1%, maintaining a positive trend in recent years. In particular, the volume of industrial production will increase by 5.8%, construction - by 6.5%, agriculture - by 2.7% and services - by 6.4%.

In 2021, the country’s GDP is expected to reach 688.9 trillion. soums, state budget revenues - 147 trillion. soums or 21.3% of GDP.

State budget expenditures will reach 165.7 trillion soums. This is 24.0% more than in 2020, while more than half of the state budget expenditures will be directed to the social sphere.

The draft law envisages a number of changes in the budgetary sphere. In particular, the Cabinet of Ministers is empowered to reallocate appropriations during the coronavirus pandemic allocated from the republican budget for the administrator of the first level budget funds for capital investments, design, construction (reconstruction) and equipping facilities, in favor of another administrator of the first level budget funds. In addition, local authorities are given the right to make equal changes to the forecasts of revenues and expenditures of the respective local budgets for the next year, taking into account the amount of inter-budgetary transfers that are planned to be allocated from higher budgets, ensuring the balance of the corresponding projects of local budgets.

In order to further increase the transparency of the budgetary process, it is proposed that fines be imposed on senior officials of the relevant ministries and departments, if the ministries and departments do not publish information on the execution of the State budget on their official websites.

In 2021, it is planned to allocate 2.2 trillion soums from the budget for the implementation of state programs in the field of education, including for the first time 30 billion soums to provide housing for orphans and children left without parental care. Another important aspect: taking into account the expansion of the network of non-state preschool educational institutions, 600 billion soums of subsidies are planned to be allocated from the state budget to non-state preschool educational institutions, i.e. twice this year.

The meeting also heard an additional report from the Chairman of the Committee of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis on Budget and Economic Reforms Sh. Nazarov.

Members of the Government, representatives of relevant ministries and departments answered in detail the questions of the people’s representatives on the draft State budget.

The leaders and representatives of all factions of political parties in the lower house of parliament expressed their positions on the draft law “On the State Budget of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2021” submitted by the Government and the main directions of tax and budgetary policy.

After active controversy, the draft law "On the State Budget of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2021" was adopted in the first reading.

The responsible committee was instructed to finalize the draft law with the participation of specialists and experts on the basis of comments and suggestions made during the preparation of the draft law for the second reading.