Ukrainian budget expenditures to grow in 2025 - finance minister

MOSCOW. June 2 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian government will have to propose enlarging budget expenditures in 2025 due to military needs by better revenue administration and additional borrowings on the domestic market, Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko said, adding that higher taxes were not under consideration.

"In this environment and at this point, there is no support [for raising taxes], so we do not even put forward such initiatives, except for a number of targeted ones," Ukrainian media quoted Marchenko as saying at the Forbes Money forum in Kiev on Friday. He thus commented on reports about a possible increase in expenditures by up to UAH 400 billion.

A partial solution to the problem of military expenditures is saving on debt servicing, he said.

Marchenko added that tax administering should be provided by tax and customs services.

"There is a potential in this area. We are working with the IMF and other partners to strengthen the administrative capabilities of the State Tax Service and the State Customs Service," he said.

The 2025 state budget was approved with revenues of UAH 2.327 trillion, including general fund revenues of UAH 2.133 trillion (excluding grants and international aid), and expenditures of UAH 3.929 trillion, including general fund expenditures of UAH 3,591 trillion.

Cash expenditures of the general budget fund increased by 25.3%, or UAH 239.6 billion YoY, to UAH 1.185 billion in January-April this year.

Ukrainian budget revenue amounted to UAH 1.262 trillion in the first four months of this year, including general fund revenue of UAH 856.3 billion, which is 49.3% and 37.3% higher than last year numbers, respectively. Among other things, international aid in the form of grants has grown more than fourfold from UAH 40.3 billion to UAH 167 billion.