The Government plans to increase payments to local budgets up to UAH 533 billion by 2020. It was stated so by Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oleksandr Danyliuk when presenting a draft of the medium-term budget planning for 2018-2020, the UNN news agecy reports.

"We continue to increase the financial resource of local budgets. In 2018, the amount of resources will total almost UAH 500 billion, that is by 16 % more than in 2017, and by 2020, that amount will total UAH 533 billion", Oleksandr Danyliuk said.

According to him, the anticipated amount of revenues of local budgets will also increase from UAH 248 billion in 2018 to UAH 284 billion in 2020.

According to him, the Government sets a goal of ensuring independence of local budgets and enhancing their financial capacity, increasing the transparency and efficiency of budgetary funds management at the local level.

"The key point is that we want to complete the reform on establishment of amalgamated communities because we need to have solvent communities", Oleksandr Danyliuk said.

As is known, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved today a draft of the Budget Resolution for the period until 2020, which resolution initiates a new process of government finance planning for a medium-term period and provides for the Ukrainian economy growth by 4% by 2020, decline in inflation to 5% by 2020, reduction of the budget deficit to 2%, and decrease of the debt/GDP ratio to 55%.

The document was prepared by the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. It is expected that, within three days, the resolution would be finally approved and referred to the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament).

When presenting the fundamental principles of the document Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman underlined, that for the first time in Ukraine the Government opens the horizon of planning for three years so that the way the country goes would be easy to understand.

He emphasised that the macro indicators included in the document constitute the basic level which might be exceeded in case when efficient decisions had been made and the required depth of transformations in the country had been reached. According to the Prime Minister, the continued decentralisation and strengthening of local budgets, increase of social standards, promotion of industry, and creation of new jobs are of primary importance