Newly appointed Finance Minister Dragan Tevdovski said that he is working on rebalancing the budget in order to secure funding for the policies promoted by his SDSM party. In a press briefing, Tevdovski said that the budget will be able to fully service all needs until the end of the year, including public salaries, retirement incomes and provide support to businesses.
Tevdovski repeated the disputed claim that SDSM found only 6,5 million EUR in the budget when they took over. “There were 209 million EUR in the foreign currency account, and we will use them to service foreign debt obligations, and it should be enough to pay all maturing debt by the end of the year”, Tevdovski said. All Government policies will be geared toward 2020 and 2021, when, Tevdovski said, Euro denominated bonds worth a billion EUR will mature.
The Finance Minister added that he is working to improve the process of VAT reimbursement, saying that the Ministry will not be conservative in this regard, and will speed up the process. “We will not hold back in the reimbursement. We have also paid out a significant sum in farming subsidies and in scholarships, which will move up the economy. I call on all companies to invest”, Tevdovski added.
Tevdovski said that he has sent demands to all public institutions to outline their spending and maturing obligations. He said that about 4 billion denars (65 million EUR) are owed to private companies.
Regaring the tax policy of the new Government, Tevdovski said that it will provide fair taxation and will increase the income and property taxes. SDSM announced it will abandon the current low and flat tax posture for higher income individuals.
