Business news from Ukraine

YULIA TYMOSHENKO: DRAFT NATIONAL BUDGET THREATENS WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE AND UKRAINIAN ECONOMY

Leader of the Batkivschyna party Yulia Tymoshenko believes that the draft national budget for 2019 submitted by the authorities is a budget for the destruction of the economy, since it envisages raising tariffs and freezing minimum wages and pensions, which will lead to the total impoverishment of the population and the destruction of the middle class, according to the official website of the party.
“For the first time in the history of Ukraine, wages and pensions are equal to 43% of the subsistence level. This is the budget of total poverty, saving the tariff policy that is crushing for Ukrainian families – they are increasing by 23%. This is a corrupt and destructive budget for the economy,” Tymoshenko told journalists in the parliament.
According to the leader of Batkivschyna, the minimum wages and pensions provided in the estimates in U.S. dollar terms are 1.7 times less than they were at the beginning of 2014, health care financing has been reduced by 1.6 times.
According to Tymoshenko, it is unacceptable that the budget for 2019 is based on the old tax base, with twice the higher rates than in developed countries, which significantly slows down the development of the economy.
The politician noted that if the government draft budget is adopted, “the economy’s falling, emigration of people to other countries, the destruction of the middle class will continue.”
“This budget, in essence, is a verdict to the country. I hope that the deputies will not risk voting for it,” Tymoshenko stated.

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