Finance Minister: 2014 budget will be completely fulfilled

This year’s budget will be 100 percent fulfilled and all funds will be spent appropriately, said Georgia’s Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri at today’s Government meeting.

The country’s Prime Minister was interested in the state of the 2014 budget and whether all funds had been appropriately spent, so asked the Finance Minister to present a report about it.

"We are ahead of time in terms of tax revenue – 70 million GEL more than planned have been mobilised and this year’s budget will be fulfilled with surplus,” Khaduri noted.

"We had a lag in terms of grants and loans but the funds have already been transferred. In December funds will be transferred from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Therefore, this year’s budget will be fulfilled with 100 percent and we have a hope of even more,” he said.

He said the Revenue Service was working properly and there would not be a single problem in terms of fulfilling the budget.

"As for the spending of the budget, we have a better situation in this direction compared to last periods as well. Throughout the last period, infrastructural works have become very active – the institution spends about 125-130 million GEL per month,” the Finance Minister said.

Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure David Shavliashvili commented on the report and noted in 2014, his Ministry’s budget was 936 million GEL and by November, 755 million GEL had been spent.

"Until the end of the year we are expecting to spend 130-140 million GEL more, which will be 95 percent of our budget. In reality we have never spent more than 93 percent of our budget,” he said.

"As for December, every year December used to be the highest spending month. However, in our case we had equal performance every month,” Shavliashvili noted.

In addition, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili expressed interest in the state of the Lari exchange rate, to which Finance Minister Khaduri noted the rate had stabilized. PM Garibashvili commented that Georgian Dream’s political opponents did not have any reason to say that the country’s economy or the Lari was in crisis.

"We really implemented successful policy in a very difficult situation. I want to tell our people that it is there is a very difficult political situation in the region – in Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia. All this is certainly reflected in our economy and on the Lari in particular,” Garibashvili noted.