Parliament Urges Cabinet to Submit 2005 Draft Budget

On November 29, Georgian Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze called on government members to submit a revised 2005 draft budget to the Parliament as soon as possible.
 
The government had to take the Parliament’s remarks into account by late October and return a revised version of the draft to the Parliament for further consideration by November 1.
 
?The Parliament should have enough time to consider the draft budget before 2005. The postponement of the adoption of the new budget for the next year will have negative consequences for the country,? Nino Burjanadze said at a session of the Parliament?s bureau on November 29.

Parliament launched discussions of the initial version of the draft budget in October; however, the parliamentarians criticized it and returned the document to the government for further consideration.

In the initial version of the draft, budgetary expenditures for the 2005 were set at the highest level in Georgia?s recent history ? 2.01 billion Lari (approximately USD 1.12 billion); while the revenues were planned to increase up to 1.8 billion Lari.

The GDP growth rate was set at 6%, while the Georgian currency?s exchange rate against US dollar was forecasted to stay at 1.8 Lari per USD.