On June 18, the Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhii Marchenko presented the annual report on the implementation of the Law of Ukraine "On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2020" to meet the requirements of the Budget Code and the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament.

The State Budget of Ukraine for 2020 was approved in November 2019. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 led to a rapid economic decline, which resulted in a gap of UAH 44 billion in the budget. Considering the lack of the Program of cooperation with the IMF, the situation required decisive and concrete actions.

"For me, as Minister of Finance, the key task for 2020 was to strengthen the fiscal framework and find a resource to fight the pandemic and its consequences," stressed Serhii Marchenko.

The main priorities in 2020 were:

• Ensuring the effective functioning of the tax and customs services and meeting their revenue targets;
• Ensuring stable revenues to finance priority spendings, fight the pandemic, and support people and businesses;
• Establishing and deepening cooperation with the IMF and other international partners.

Despite the difficult conditions, thanks to the support of the President of Ukraine, the Parliament, and the Government we managed not only to finish the year 2020 with good performance but also created the basis for economic growth this year. Ukraine's progress was also appreciated by the international community. It is evidenced by the performance indicators:

• Reduction of the level of state budget deficit (the actual state budget deficit was 5.2% of GDP versus the plan of 7.5% of GDP);
• Exceeding the state budget revenues (actually, there were 1,076 billion UAH versus the planned UAH 1,022 billion or 5.3% more than planned);
• All priority expenditures were financed on time and in full;
• The Program of Cooperation with the IMF has been signed, within the framework of which Ukraine has already received the first tranche of USD 2.1 billion;
• 2 tranches of macro-financial assistance for EUR 1.1 billion have been received from the European Union;
• Customs and Tax reforms have been initiated;
• The COVID fund has financed expenditures in the amount of UAH 78.4 billion.

The Parliament took the report of the Government on the execution of the State Budget for 2020 for its consideration. Members of Parliament supported the draft decree No 5612. The 232 deputies voted for it.